■^h^ ^itibersitp oi Chicago 

FOUNDED BY .lOIIN D. KOCKEFELLER 



THE POSSIBILITY 



OF A 



SCIENCB OF EDUCATION 



A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTIES OP THE GRAD- 
UATE SCHOOLS OF ARTS, LITERATURE, AND SCIENCE, 
IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY. 



(DEPARTMENT OF PEDAGOGY AND PHILOSOPHY) 

BY 
SAMUEL BOWER SINCLAIR 



CHICAGO 

1903. 



J. / r^ 



IBiois 
,Ssf 



IN JUXCH A NGP 



2^ . I 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter Page 

I. Introduction 1 

(«) Statement of the Problem. 

(6) Summary of replies from University Professors. 

(c) Statement of position to be defended. 

II. The Empibical Objection 14 

Consideration of several popular criticisms urged 
against the Professional Training of Teachers. 

III. The Dynamic Conception of Science 22 

(«) Contrast between the Static and Dynamic con- 
ceptions. Superiority of the Dynamic con- 
ception. 

(b) Illustration of the Dynamic view of Science 
as applied to the classificatory judgment in 
Educational procedure. 

IV. The Dynamic Conception of Education 34 

(a) Consideration of various Static theories of 

Education ; (1) Instruction ; (2) Development ; 
(3) FoUow-Nature. Superiority of the Dyna- 
mic theory. 

(b) Statement of the view of Education defended in 

this treatise. 

V. Educational Aims and Means 44 

(a) Analysis of Aims and Means of Education. 

(b) Educational Aims. Static aims hitherto pro- 

posed — Instruction, discipline, culture. The 
true aim — Character, i.e., true culture, com- 
bining both Instruction and Discipline. The 
true aims of education formulated on the basis 
of Ethical and Sociological considerations. 
Importance of an investigation of the aims 
of Education by the teacher. 



iv Contents. 

Chaptkr Paqk 

(c) Educational Means. The material or subject- 
matter furnished from sources beyond the 
direct control of the teacher. Value of Socio- 
logical, Biological and Political investigations 
in this connection. The Educator's work, 
mainly in regard to method. Valuable assist- 
ance derived from Psychology and cognate 
sciences and from the History of Education. 
Consideration of objections against Psychology 
as an aid. The Historical Factor. 

VI. The Psychological Factor of Educational Science. 57 
Ways in which Psychology is of value- in Educa- 
tion. It furnishes information regarding : 

1. Stages of mental development. 

2. The Unity of individual Experience. 

3. The genesis of Habit. 

4. The sequence of subject-matter. 

5. The conditions most conducive to Educa- 

tional activity. 

6. The application of this knowledge to : 

(a) The judicious selection and arrange- 
ment of subject-matter. 
(/>) Methods of teaching, 
(c) The securing of proper conditions 
for study. 
Classroom illustrations. 
VII. The Technique of Educational Science 89 

(a) The jiresent status of Educational Science. 

(b) Influences detrimental to the growth of Educa- 

tional Science. 

(c) Improvements suggested. 

(d) Illustrations of development of Educational 

technique and treatment of the subject in 
Professional Training-schools. ^ 

Summary of Thesis Argument. 

APPENDIX. 

Quotations From Replies Received From University 
Professors 119 



THE POSSIBILITY OF A SCIENCE 
OF EDUCATION. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Can there be a science of education as there is a science 
of mathematics, of physics, of medicine, or of ethics ; are 
there educational facts or principles capable of discovery 
and systematization which are so fundamental, universal and 
important as to differentiate educational science from every 
other ; and, further, is a study of such educational science of 
service to the educator by furnishing him with instruments 
of insight which will be valuable in the determination of the 
true purpose of education and of ways and means to its 
attainment 1 This, in brief, is the problem submitted for 
investigation. 

No argument is necessary to demonstrate the important 
practical bearing of the problem proposed. Its solution affects 
in a most profound and vital way every phase of educational 
procedure. More especially is this true in regard to the prep- 
aration of teachers. If the foregoing questions are answered 
in the negative, the so-called professional training of teachers 
is "a delusion and a snare," and had better be dispensed 
with. On the other hand, if an affirmative answer should be 
given to these questions every teacher, from the kindergarten 
to the university, would be rendered more efficient by a cer- 
tain quantum of a suitable kind of preliminary professional 
training. 

The problem is an old and familiar one and has in some 
form or other received the attention of scholars and practical 
men from the earliest times. 



2 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

With the modern scientific movement the subject has 
naturally come prominently into the foreground of public 
consciousness, and has received extended and scholarly treat- 
ment at the hands of many eminent philosophers and scientists. 

The view advocated by many of these writers — especially by 
university men — is, in brief, that science being abstract and 
universal, and the child concrete and individual, there can be 
no science of education properly so called ; and, further, that 
as knowledge, natural aptitude and successful experience are 
the prime requisites of the successful teacher, pedagogical 
training is unnecessary and may do more harm than good. 

Public sentiment, however, which history has proved to be 
at times more sane than current philosophy, has persisted in a 
constantly-increasing demand for more thorough and continued 
professional training on the part of the teacher.* 

The increased attention given to the subject during recent 
years in all civilized countries is phenomenal, and would seem 
to indicate an almost universal sentiment in favor of the 
importance of, and necessity for, such training ; e.g., in the 
Province of Ontario, Canada, the annual government grant 
for teachers' salaries and other expenditure, not including 
buildings, in such professional schools was in 1870, $17,169.74; 
in 1890, $52,532.00; in 1900, $74,518.00. 

The demand for professional training, formerly confined 
almost exclusively to the elementary school, has recently 

*It must be admitted, however, that there are evidences to show that in many, 
perhaps the majority of, cases citizens have no very clearly-defined reasons to assign 
for this additional burden of taxation, and, in cases where the selection of a trained 
instead of an untrained teacher involves personal financial loss or the sacrifice of 
private interests political or otherwise, the results are often such as to indicate that 
sentiment in favor of professional training has not become sufficiently ingrained to 
form a strong motive for action. As an example we may cite the conditions which 
obtain in the State of Illinois. In the report of the State Superintendent oj Education 
(June, 1901) we find (p. 15) that Illinois has two normal universities and two normal 
Bchools with a total government expenditure of $293,398.48, and yet that (p. 43) "not 
one teacher in five has been either liberally educated or trained in a state normal 
school." The report also shows (p. 3) that the lowest salary paid for a male teacher is 
$12.50 per month, and for a female teacher $8.00 per month. 



Introduction. 



made itself felt in connection with the high school, and in 
compliance with this demand many universities have estab- 
lished departments of education. 

In the educational world, as along other lines of human 
activity, the necessity for cooperation is being realized as 
never before. The university, the secondary and the elemen- 
tary schools are beginning to see that the interests of each are 
bound up in, and dependent upon, the success of the others. 
The low estimate of university training formerly entertained 
by many teachers of elementary schools is rapidly giving place 
to a feeling of true appreciation, while, at the opposite pole, 
ignorance of the elementary school system of one's country is 
not now considered a sine qua nan for scholarly reputation. 

In no case is this change of attitude from one of disregard 
to one of sympathetic and attentive consideration more evi- 
dent than in the interest shown by university men in the 
problem here under discussion. 

With a view to determine in a general way the opinion held 
by university professors regarding the value of professional 
training for teachers I prepared a circular and sent it to 
presidents and heads of departments of American universities 
considered to be most representative. Sixty-three replies were 
received. Of these nine were from presidents of universities, 
and with only four exceptions the remainder were from heads 
of departments. Thirteen replies were from professors of the 
department of philosophy, eleven from natural science, eight 
from classics, five from mathematics, four from English, 
six from teaching and seven from other departments. The 
replies from professors of teaching departments are not 
included in this report.* 

The following is a summary of questions submitted and 
replies received : — 

•For statements of views held by professors in teaching department see report of 
the committee on "The Certification of College and University Graduates as Teachers 
in the Public Schools" in The School Review, June, 1899, The University of Chicago 
Press. 



4 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

1. Do you consider that the present system of professional 

training, e.g., Normal Schools or University Depart- 
ment of Pedagogy, is desirable for teachers in 
{a) Elementary Schools ? Affirmative answers, 28 ; nega- 
tive, 3. 
(6) Secondary Schools ? Affirmative answers, 28 ; nega- 
tive, 9. 
(c) Universities 1 Affirmative answers, 20; negative, 17, 

2. Do you consider that a system of Professional training 

could be devised which would be desirable for teachers in 
(a) Elementary Schools 1 Affirmative answers, 43 ; nega- 
tive, 3. 
{b) Secondary Schools ? Affirmative answers, 43 ; nega- 
tive, 3. 
(c) Universities 1 Affirmative answers, 31; negative, 11. 

3. Do you think it possible to place the training of teachers 

upon a Scientific Basis ? Affirmative views, 27 ; nega- 
tive, 2. 

Many of those who answer in the affirmative point out that 
they do so with the reservation that in the first question 
reference is to the better type of existing training-schools, 
and in the third to a proper interpretation of the word " scien- 
tific." 

Those who do not answer the categorical questions (and 
many who do reply to them) have been so good as to add 
written statements of their views on the general topic, and 
from these statements the following summary is made : 

Forty-five out of fifty-seven favor the professional training 
of teachers. Of these a number would confine the training to 
a certain class, e.g., teachers of elementary schools, and would 
reduce the time and content of the course to a minimum. One 
is opposed to all such training. Twenty-six emphasize knowl- 
edge of the subject to be taught, as an important, if not 
the most important, factor to be considered in a teacher's 



Introduction. 



preparation. Thirteen emphasize natural aptitude, vigorous 
personality, etc., as important factors. Five emphasize study 
under an able and inspiring teacher, as invaluable in such 
preparation. Four award the palm to successful experience. 
Twenty-two express the opinion that in many existing profes- 
sional training-schools there is a tendency to depreciate one or 
more of the above-mentioned elements — knowledge, aptitude, 
observation, experience — and to substitute pedagogical methods 
as an equivalent. Eleven hold the view that professional train- 
ing is most important for elementary school teachers, and that 
its value uniformly decreases as we ascend to higher levels in 
the system, until for university teachers it is of little or no 
value. 

That so many of our ablest thinkers in the fields of science, 
literature and art, should have taken time to turn aside from 
their important duties, to express themselves so fully on the 
subject at issue will, 1 am sure, be a source of inspiration to 
those who, in humbler spheres, are endeavoring to render their 
teaching more efficient. That there should be such unanimity 
of opinion that method has been exalted at the expense of 
knowledge would seem to indicate that some training-schools, 
at least, have not been true to the highest ideals. It is also 
worthy of note that over ninety per cent, of those who replied, 
favor some form of professional training, although there is 
great diversity of opinion regarding the nature of the training 
which should be given. 

As will be seen, nearly one half of those from whom replies 
have been received do not feel themselves prepared to express 
any opinion regarding the possibility of placing the training of 
teachers upon a scientific basis, while those who do reply in 
the affirmative do so with reservations differing widely in 
character. 

On page 119 and subsequent pages will be found quotations 
from the answers received, incorporating the arguments pro 



6 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

and con. Space does not admit of a complete statement of all 
the replies. 

A consideration of the facts thus far referred to seems to 
suggest the need of further investigation of the problem. 

In the following pages I have endeavored to establish the 
thesis that a science of education is possible. It will be 
observed that throughout the argument constant emphasis has 
also been placed upon the importance of the jjrofessional train- 
ing of teachers. This seeming dual treatment is the logical 
outgrowth of the dynamic conception (subsequently explained) 
upon which the argument is based, a conception which holds 
that the relation of theory and practice is of such an intimate 
nature that neither can be divorced from the other. Further, 
this conception makes the criterion of the possibility of educa- 
tional science to consist in its capacity to furnish insight in 
educational procedure, and I have, therefore, tried to show by 
somewhat extended and definite illustrations, ways in which 
such insight can be furnished. 

In the attempt to arrive at a satisfactory solution regarding 
the problem proposed, I am not unmindful of the high charac- . 
ter of the sources of the opinions from which I am obliged to 
differ. I am convinced that these opinions would have been 
greatly modified had their authors had time and opportunity 
to observe the improvement which invariably takes place in 
the teaching power of those who are being professionally 
trained in a truly scientific way. 

Two articles on the subject of " Pedagogy as a Science" 
may be said to have become classical authorities owing to the 
philosophical character of the treatment and the eminence of 
the authors. The first is by Professor Dilthey, "Ueber die 
Mbglichkeit einer allgemeingiltigen pedagogischen Wissen- 
chaften," 1888, pp. 807-832. The second is by Professor 
Royce, "Is there a Science of Education?" Educational 
Review, 1891, pp. 15-121. Professor Royce reviews Dr. Dil- 



Introduction. 



they's article and expresses himself as substantially in accord 
with the views therein enunciated. Both writers conclude 
that there can be no science of education properly so called, 
but that valuable training may be afforded by a study of 
the history of education, biological science, etc. 

The following quotations may serve to indicate the line of 
argument followed in Professor Royce's article : 

"Scientific pedagogy, far from telling the teacher finally and com- 
pletely just what human nature is and must be and just what to do 
with it, will be limited to pointing out what does, on the whole, 
tend toward good order and toward the organization of impulses into 
character. This is the whole province of pedagogy as a general science. 
Its applications to the conditions of a particular time, nation, family 
and child, will be a matter of art not of science. And, therefore, no 
concrete, educational questions can be solved in terms of a universally 
valid science. Such questions will always contain elements of uncer- 
tainty, will always require the practical skill of the individual educator 
and will always receive answers that will vary with time and occasion." 

"Universally valid your 'system' never can be; therefore, hold it 
not as a system. But universally significant your scientific insight may 
become to you, if you once possess it, and can bear in mind that it is 
after all abstract, and yet noteworthy as an abstraction. Teachers, 
then, do need a scientific training for their calling. Instinct, unchast- 
ened by science, is blindly self-confident, and when it goes astray its 
fall from grace is irreparable ; its very innocence then proves its doom. 
Teachers who know nothing of the reflective aspects of their calling, 
who do not try to comprehend as well as to love their pupils, who 
despise science because it cannot take the place of devotion and of 
instinct, may indeed be successful, and, in any case, their state, so long 
as by chance they do not go far astray, is vastly better than the present 
state of those pedants who have heard of modern science, of nerve cells, 
and of apperception, and who forthwith have developed or copied some 
hundreds of systematic principles of ' Pedagogical Method.' " 

With most of the statements in the articles referred to, and 
in the subsequent writings of those who take a similar nega- 
tive view — e.g., in replies quoted p. 119 — I heartily agree, but 
while hesitating to differ from such eminent authorities I beg 
to object to the definition of science upon which the arguments 
seem to have been based and to the conclusions deduced there- 



8 2^he Possibility of a Science of Education. 

from. The position which I attempt to defend is that such 
limited static view of science is incorrect and that the conclu- 
sions drawn from the application of such a view to education 
are untenable. 

1st. Science is not so much a systematized body of knowl- 
edge, " universally valid " and finally fixed, as it is an accepted 
instrument of insight to furnish control over future experience. 
Nor are the principles of educational science rules to be 
"copied from a book" and immediately applied by the teacher 
without reference to the particular conditions of the " time, 
nation, family and child." 

Educational theory is sometimes thus conceived as some- 
thing over and above and isolated from individual experience, 
a sort of educational tourist guidebook which when once 
memorized will enable the teacher, without individual appre- 
ciation, deliberation or selection, to locate and place under 
the proper category all the phenomena of the classroom, to 
advance with copyrighted, ready-reckoner methods which will 
cover much ground in little time, and secure magnificent 
examination results ; a pedagogical doctoi'-book, with rules 
to enable one to diagnose with certainty every disease and 
apply the only possible prescription for each particular case 
of difficulty as it arises. 

I shall endeavor to show that as fact and law are but 
two aspects of the same operation, educational theory cannot 
thus be sundered from educational practice without becoming 
static, formal, lifeless. Educational theory is not so much a 
reflective and systematic account of things, a systematized 
body of knowledge, as it is an idea of something to be done. 
There is no such thing as education in general. It is always 
this particular individual who has to be considered atid dealt 
with under these conditions at this present moment. There 
is always an activity possible to this learner which, as to form 
and content, is preferable to any other of the countless courses 



Introduction. 



of action open to choice. The problem is always how to reor- 
ganize this present experience in the best possible way. Our 
desire is to know this specific case in all its concreteness, to 
investigate, analyze, clarify, relate it, not that we may find 
some abstract rule under which it may be brought, some till 
into which it may be pigeon-holed, some mold in which it may 
be cast, but that we may see what this experience really is, 
that we may recognize the relationships in hand and respond 
to the demands of these relationships. 

Educational theory is neither more nor less than educational 
insight, an analytic perception of the conditions and relations 
involved in a particular case, and accordingly the criterion of 
value of a course of professional training must always be the 
degree in which it enables the teacher to possess such clearer 
vision for the reconstruction of each new breakdown in 
experience. 

2nd. Further, it is often urged that education is wholly an 
art, consisting of the application of a number of other sciences 
— biology, psychology, ethics, sociology, etc., and that if the 
teacher has attained a knowledge of these cognate sciences 
he has simply to apply this knowledge when he comes to 
teach. The view taken in the following pages is that educa- 
tion is an independent science, with phenomena and laws 
peculiar to itself, and that it may properly be considered to 
depend upon other sciences only in such a sense as chemical 
science may be said to depend upon mathematics. 

Educational science finds its focus in its endeavor to gain 
control of the educational process. It views from this focal 
standpoint everything in proper perspective. It casts its 
tentacles into the sea of all auxiliary science, literature and 
art, and appropriates and assimilates that which is best fitted 
for its special requirements. It possesses a technique entirely 
diflferent from that of any other science, a technique which can 
be mastered in the best way only when the teacher in training 



10 The Possihility of a Science of Education. 

studies it from a distinctly educational standpoint, and under 
conditions which furnish opportunities both for observation 
and for practice. 

3rd. Again, the question of the advisability of the profes- 
sional preparation of teachers is frequently discussed as though 
it were an alternative one in which professional training 
(usually of the objectionable type to which allusion has been 
made), on the one hand, is arrayed against a combination of 
knowledge, natural aptitude and successful experience, on the 
other. My contention is that this is not a correct or adequate 
statement of the problem, but that the real question at issue 
is to what extent, if any, will the teacher who possesses these 
preliminary essentials of knowledge, devotion, instinct, etc., be 
benefited by professional training conducted in a scholarly 
spirit and accompanied by actual contact with children. 

I shall not attempt to defend the views which have been 
assailed in the cases referred to, but shall endeavor to show 
that in regard to each the attack has been made upon an 
empty fortress. Nor do I claim that present systems of train- 
ing are perfect. It is admitted that much that has been 
written under the guise of educational science is anything but 
scientific, that too large a portion of what has been proposed 
as the final word on educational method is valuable only as a 
warning of method not to be followed, and that it is possible 
for a certain type of student to receive so-called professional 
training without gaining that culture which is always accom- 
panied by the grace of humility. 

There are graduates of teachers' training-schools for whom 
the clock of development in scholarship and culture stopped 
on the day when they received their diplomas. They never 
contribute anything to the cause of educational advance and 
the value of their schoolroom work varies inversely as the 
length of their experience. On the other hand, there are 
eminent university men who have never attended any institu- 



Introduction. 1 1 



tion for pedagogical training, who nevertheless in addition to 
the study and research work which have made them famous 
in their special departments have familiarized themselves with 
the best educational literature and have thought profoundly 
on educational subjects. Their lectures are models as regards 
matter and method and their utterances on educational ques- 
tions have deservedly ranked them as leaders in true educa- 
tional reform. The assertion that the former are trained 
teachers, and the latter untrained, is too absurd to be taken 
seriously. A specialist is not one who " says that he is," nor 
yet one who has certificates to show that he ought to be, but 
rather one whose actions when put to the test, demonstrate 
conclusively that he is master of the situation. 

Perfection consists not in "a having and a resting," but in 
"a growing and a becoming." The difficulty of professional 
training consists not so much in developing a teacher who 
does good work at the beginning as in training him in such a 
manner that, possessing elements of growth, he may continue 
to increase in efficiency from year to year. 

If a course of training has nothing to offer but a number of 
shibboleths and cut-and-dried methods of doing things, based 
on no other authority than that someone says they have 
worked fairly well in the past, it will be of little benefit to 
the student. On the other hand, if during a professional 
training course the teacher gains an insight which will enable 
him to originate his own methods, to reconstruct his own 
experience at every step so as to react in the best possible 
way, and also at the same time gains an impulse for further 
development, such training will be valuable from the stand- 
points of knowledge, discipline and culture, his efficiency as a 
teacher will be increased many times over, and what might 
have proved ** the sorriest of trades " will become " the noblest 
of professions." 

While admitting the imperfection of prevailing educational 
systems it may not be out of place to observe that charges 



12 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

similar to the foregoing may be laid at the door of every other 
science or profession. The most ardent advocates of profes- 
sional training for teachers are foremost in the demand for 
the correction of existing evils, and it is probable that all 
who have observed the trend of events will admit that great 
reforms are being accomplished. It is hoped that the following 
argument may prove sufficiently unprejudiced and practical 
to serve in some way in the furtherance of such advance : 
GrENERAL PRELIMINARY STATEMENT. — In Order to clear the 
ground for future discussion, without attempting to define 
precisely the necessary qualifications of the teacher or the 
course of study most appropriate for training-schools, the fol- 
lowing are suggested as general working hypotheses : — 

I. Minimum Teaching Qualifications. 

(a) That elementary school teachers possess a scholarship 
rank equivalent to that of the first year in our best 
universities, and high-school teachers to that of the 
A.B. degree. 

(6) That in addition to the foregoing academic qualification 
(before receiving a permanent certificate to teach) two 
years of professional preparation be demanded, of 
which at least one year be spent in a training-school 
(normal school, college or university) and the remain- 
ing time devoted to teaching under competent super- 
vision. 

II. Course of Study in Training-School. 

(a) Philosophical investigation of the general problem of 
education. 

(6) History of education — comparative study of school sys- 
tems. 

(c) The following subjects studied from the standpoint of 
education : 

1. History of civilization. 

2. Ethics, sociology, political science. 

3. Psychology (genetic), child-study, biology, physiology. 



Introduction. 13 



(d) School organization and supervision, school law. 

(e) Study of educational classics. 

(/) Methodology and didactics ; review of subjects to be 
taught. 

[g) Study of subjects necessary for the teacher but not pre- 
viously learned ; e.g., hygiene. 

(h) Observation and teaching in practice school. 

(i) Experimentation in educational laboratory school. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE EMPIRICAL OBJECTION. 



As has already been suggested the arguments of those who 
answer our questions regarding the possibility of a science of 
education in the negative, naturally fall under two heads : 
(1) That from the inherent nature of science and of education 
no science of education is possible. (2) That on the side of 
experience the attempt to give professional training to teachers 
is an attempt to substitute such training for what is more 
important and valuable, an attempt which is, therefore, certain 
to be disastrous to the highest efficiency. 

I hope that in the discussion of the first objection, which is 
fundamental, the second, which is a development from it, will 
largely disappear. However, as the latter, which may be 
called the empirical form of objection, is the one which is 
usually first presented I shall refer briefly to several popular 
criticisms concerning it before proceeding to the main discus- 
sion of the first objection, which will be taken in succeeding 
chapters.* 

1st. When a plea is made for the professional training of 
teachers it is sometimes urged in opposition that such a plea 
is based upon a desire to give to teaching a standing — social 
and scientific — to which in the very nature of things it is not 
entitled, that there is not, and never can be, a separate 
profession of teaching. 

If the objection were simply one of social hierarchy it need 
not cause special concern in this democratic age. But the 

*See article on "The Study of Education," by Prof. Findlay , Oovernment Educational 
Report, London, Eng., Vol. II, p. 338. 



The Empirical Objection. 15 

objection has a much more important bearing, for this view 
that " anybody can teach school, that no professional prepara- 
tion is necessary, that if a person can show that he has more 
knowledge than those to be taught it is quite safe to turn 
him loose upon a class," when applied in educational affairs 
produces two disastrous results. 

(a) It reduces the remuneration for teaching to the level 
of that for unskilled labor. Indeed, it reaches a much lower 
limit, especially in primary work, where according to the 
opinion of many advocates of this theory " the knowledge to 
be poured in is easily gained and the hours are fewer than 
those for a domestic servant." The reference on page 2 to 
the case where in a comparatively wealthy community the 
teacher is paid only eight dollars a month is an illustration 
of this fact. 

(h) It places incompetent teachers in the schools. As I 
shall endeavor to establish, in every grade of educational work 
from the kindergarten to the university, and more particularly 
on the elementary levels, there is a certain scientific attitude 
which is necessary for highest educational achievement, and 
which cannot be gained without careful and long, continued 
preparation on the part of the teacher. This is an age of 
specialists, and the best men are not likely to enter or con- 
tinue in a work where, according to accepted public sentiment, 
there are no fields for research nor any criteria for advance- 
ment, and where the salaries are insufficient to provide even 
the simplest necessities of life. Such deflection is more appar- 
ent in the case of elementary schools, but cannot fail to be felt 
in other lines of educational work as well. The whole tend- 
ency of the objection, is, therefore, to debar teaching from 
attaining the high standard of efficiency which it might other- 
wise reach, by preventing from engaging therein any but those 
of mediocre ability who could not succeed in other more 
remunerative employments. 



1 6 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

The objection to the possibility of raising teaching to the 
status of a profession often arises from an entirely different 
standpoint, however (a scholarly one), when it is argued that 
"a imiversity man who has received a liberal education is 
ipso facto qualified to enter upon other careers in life." In so 
far as this means that as a preparation for life university 
scholarship and culture are invaluable the statement is 
undoubtedly true. It is worthy of notice that this argument 
was used against the proposal to demand professional prepara- 
tion for law and for medicine, and has been abandoned in these 
cases as it will eventually be as regards teaching. The recent 
union of the secondary teachers of England in the formation 
of a profession, the resolutions of the Cambridge Conference 
in favor of the training of teachers, and the adoption of pro- 
fessional training of teachers by the governments of the most 
advanced nations, e.g., Great Britain, France, Germany and 
the United States of America, are indications that this objec- 
tion is now generally regarded as practically untenable. 

2nd. The objection is sometimes made " that professionally- 
trained teachers are little or no better than untrained, that 
they are apt to be mechanical and unpractical, and to be 
lacking in originality and initiative." Such a statement can 
scarcely be verified or disproved by experiment. The facts, 
however, that the testimony of school supervisors is almost 
entirely against the objection, and that public sentiment, 
which does not continue to invest money for fads after they 
have been put to actual test for many years, is steadily giving 
more attention to the subject and support to such training, 
would seem to cast doubt upon the general accuracy of the 
statement. 

The failure of a professionally-trained teacher is usually 
traceable either to a lack of aptitude or of preparati(Jli on 
entering the training-school, or to the inadequacy of the train- 
ing given therein. That such failure sometimes does occur 



The Empirical Objection. 17 

emphasizes the fact that one of the duties of such a school is 
to see that those who are not naturally fitted for teaching, 
or who are illiterate or unworthy, are there directed into more 
appropriate lines of work. 

3rd. The main objection made by scholarly men against 
professional training is, however, the one which in different 
forms appears so often in the replies received (p. 119), viz., 
" that if we demand professional training the knowledge and 
culture standard of teachers will be lowered." In reply the 
following points are submitted as worthy of consideration : — 

(a) Underlying this objection there usually rests the oft- 
repeated assumption that "if a teacher knows his subject 
well he can teach it properly." 

Probably no other view regarding education is so wide- 
spread and at the same time so opposed to the facts of every- 
day experience. To take a familiar example, a person may 
know the way from his house to the railway station so well as 
to walk the whole distance in the dark and yet be entirely 
unable, without careful reflection, to direct a stranger over 
the same road. A thoughtful, subsequent analysis of the 
explanation which one gives on such occasions usually proves 
a source of astonishment to himself, and the interpretation 
put upon his directions by his auditor, whose attitude he has 
not considered, is even a greater surprise to him. The more 
reflex and habitual the activity of the journey has become the 
more likely is he to offer rapidly a few random and unrelated 
directions, concluding with the illuminating phrase, "You 
can't miss it." The comparison of such explanation with the 
explanations given by many teachers to their students is not 
inappropriate. It will be admitted by many that it would be 
difficult to find teaching anywhere inferior to that done in 
many universities by young men with brilliant records for 
scholarship. A well-known university president of long 
experience recently made the significant remark that he 



18 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

thought " no instructor without previous teaching experience 
should be appointed on a university staff until three years had 
elapsed after receiving his doctor's degree in order to allow 
him to come to earth again and to win his spurs in a less 
responsible position." 

Again, the born teacher who is a profound scholar, but who 
has never thought upon educational problems, may, with the 
best possible intentions, use these special powers in such a way 
as to lead to failure. His vigorous personality, unbounded 
enthusiasm and apparently exhaustless resources of knowl- 
edge, render his classroom work a spontaneous overflow. His 
students are carried along as with a flood. Admiration and 
love give place to something akin to reverence. As was recently 
remarked in a public eulogy upon such a teacher, " His 
students had such implicit confidence in his knowledge, and 
such reverence for his opinion, that after leaving him they no 
longer cared to think for themselves. They were satisfied 
with the conclusions reached by a mind so much superior to 
their own, possessing a grasp and insight which they realized 
was so far in advance of anything they coidd ever hope to 
attain." 

Now, my argument for professional training is not one 
which would minimize in the slightest degree the incalculable 
worth of such teachers. It holds that upon such a type the 
hope for the future of a country' largely rests, and that no 
money is an adequate remuneration for such service. But it 
contends that the type is improved by training, that in the 
case referred to if the distinguished professor had spent some 
time in the consideration of educational problems he would 
have seen that all true education must be self-education, that 
one of the important things to be considered is hpw to have 
students form a habit of " thinking for themselves," and that 
it is a somewhat serious matter to find students standing erect 
and to leave them abjectly following on all fours. 



The Empi7-ical Objection. 19 

This argument is no plea for ignorance on the part of the 
teacher. The contention of Jacotot and others that "one can 
teach what one does not know " is, except in a very limited 
sense, undoubtedly incorrect. Other things being equal the 
teacher of high culture and scholarship will always be a better 
teacher than one of lower scholarship, but professional training 
must not be omitted from the original equation. It will be 
noted that in the course outlined on p. 12 it is assumed as 
a basis for this argument that a minimum scholarship pre- 
requisite should be demanded — of first year in an accredited 
university for elementary teachers, and of the A.B. degree for 
high-school teachers. 

It is often justly urged that many of the best teachers did 
not receive professional training. While admitting the force 
of this objection we do well to remember two things : (1) The 
real question at issue is not did these teachers excel others, 
but rather would these teachers who were so signally successful 
without professional training have been still better teachers if 
they had received such training ; and (2), in the majority of 
cases, these teachers possessed special opportunities which in 
a way furnished a substitute for such training. 

In discussing this point Professor Findlay says, " The 
conclusion we draw is that some training is necessaiy to 
widen the mind and deepen the insight, even in tlie case of 
teachers gifted largely with sympathetic instincts, but such 
training is helpful only if it is conducted in close association 
with the life of children. This association must be intimate 
and continuous ; casual lessons to strange children, odd visits 
to educational institutions, are of little advantage. It is worth 
observing that some of the most distinguished educational 
reformers owe much to opportunities of this description. 
Arnold when at Rugby displayed a wonderful understanding 
of the nature of sixth-form boys ; it is sometimes forgotten 
that he had gained this experience by his life at Laleham 



20 21ie Possibility of a Science of Education. 

with a few boys at a time. Herbart had a similar experience 
as a tiator in the Stelger family ; Froebel had charge of some 
of his nephews in the early part of his career, and Locke's 
philosophy of education was the outcome of his observations 
on one or two pupils." 

(6) Further, it would be a sad commentary upon a training- 
school if it could be truly said that it did not in any way 
provide what a college course stands for. The subject is too 
extended for discussion here, but it is probable that those 
who are familar with the facts will agree that in the best 
professional training-schools the culture effect as regards 
both discipline and knowledge is equal to that of some col- 
leges. The university student pursuing a post-graduate course 
in education does not find courses on the history or philosophy 
of education or on school organization, when treated by able 
professors, to be less scholarly or productive than those which 
he takes in other departments. 

(c) Finally, this objection assumes that the time taken for 
professional training will be subtracted from that which 
would otherwise be devoted to scholarship training ; e.g., it 
assumes that a student in training for the position of teacher 
in a high school would substitute for one year of college work 
the year of professional training demanded. This hypothesis 
is, in my opinion, not verified by the results of school experi- 
ence. The subject is a very wide and complex one containing 
many elements for consideration — e.g., the fact that the new 
conditions tend toward making teaching a profession with a 
higher class of talent and better remuneration, thus making 
it a possible life pursuit, would be a spur to better prepara- 
tion on the part of the teacher. 

With a view to finding what actually does occur lyider such 
circumstances I have taken as an illustration the case of the 
high-school teachers of the Province of Ontario, Canada.* 

"Under the head of high schools are inchided collegiate institutes which are advanced 
high schools. 



The Emnpirical Objection. 21 

The first time that professional qualification of any kind 
was demanded of high-school teachers in Ontario was in the 
year 1885 when a course of training of about four months 
was rendered compulsory by government regulation. This 
law continued in force with slight alteration until 1893 
when the course was extended to a full year's attendance 
at the Ontario Normal College, and this is still the require- 
ment. At no time has it been compulsory for a student of 
the Normal College or a teacher in a high school, with the 
exception of headmaster, to hold an arts degree. In the 
year 1893 there were 344 high-school teachers who possessed 
A.B. degrees and 190 who did not. In 1900 there were 427 
who possessed A.B. degrees and 190 who did not. 

Now, the example from 1893 to 1900 is exceptionally appli- 
cable to this investigation. A full year of attendance was 
demanded with subsequent interim teaching. The regulation 
was applied under the same conditions for the succeeding 
seven years, and it was at the student's option to enter with 
or without the A.B. degree. During these seven years we 
find an increase of eighty-three teachers who hold A.B. degrees 
and no increase in the number of those who do not. 

The following statement from a high educational authority 
in Ontario describes the existing conditions : — 

' ' The indications are that we shall soon have a regulation making 
university degrees and graduation at the Normal College imperative on 
every high-school teacher. After sixteen years of professional training 
of high-school teachers there are more honor graduates in the high 
schools than at any former period of its history. Further, a glance at 
the curriculum of each of the various universities will show that the 
academic standard has not been lowered, but rather increased. The 
idea that scholarship is lowered as professional training is increased 
cannot be considered as even a reasonable assumption." 

The discussion in this chapter tends to show that with 
a rational system of professional training, and with its aims 
and methods clearly understood by the general public, all such 
empirical objections would disappear. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE DYNAMIC CONCEPTION OF SCIENCE. 

Let us now return to a consideration of the main objection — 
that from the inherent nature of science and of education no 
science of education is possible. In our discussion everything 
depends upon what is meant by science and education. It is 
therefore necessary to find some satisfactory working agree- 
ment regarding the force of each of these terms. 

The generally-accepted definition of science is that "it is a 
collection of the general principles or leading truths relating 
to any subject arranged in systematic order." The static 
interpretation often put upon this definition by those who 
have discussed the subject of educational science is inadequate 
to the full meaning of the term. True science is essentially 
teleological in character ; it possesses a systematized body of 
knowledge, but systematized as instruments for the recon- 
struction of future experience. Facts, if there be such, which 
are fixed and unchanging, which exist outside of consciousness 
and which do not lead anywhere, are in no sense scientific no 
matter how thoroughly systematized, universal or absolute 
they may be considered to be. While taking this position it 
is not implied that abstraction, generalization, systematization 
and law, are terms to be discarded in scientific procedure ; it is 
only in regard to the true significance of the terms that there 
is difference of opinion. 

I hope to show that educational science possesses a body 
of systematized knowledge arrived at by processes of experi- 
mentation, abstraction, generalization, etc., but that such 
educational theory and the mode of its genesis must be looked 



The Dynamic Conception of Science. 23 

upon from the standpoint of function. As this distinction is 
vital to the discussion in hand I shall enter into a brief 
explanation of the superiority of the dynamic conception as 
compared with the static, and afterwards endeavor to show 
the bearing of the discussion upon tlie further educational 
problem. 

Two clearly-differentiated views have been held regarding the 
meaning of the term "scientific." The first view is dualistic. 
It deals with types and categories and draws a definite line 
of demarcation between theory and practice. It views science 
as an organized body of knowledge, over and above and inde- 
pendent of individual experience, a series of fixed general- 
izations existing entirely isolated from the particular. It 
holds that the criterion of science consists in the independence 
and finality of the facts obtained, and depreciates the func- 
tional value of such facts ; e.g., Whewell {Novum Organum 
Renovation, p. 242) says : — " It is said with a feeling of 
triumph that knowledge is power ; but in whatever sense this 
may truly be said we value knowledge not because it is power 
but because it is knowledge, and we wrongly estimate both 
the nature and the dignity of that kind of science with which 
we are concerned [inductive] if we expect that every new 
advance in theory will forthwith have a market value." 

The second view, and the one substantially adhered to in 
this thesis, is teleological, dynamic, functional. It holds that 
it is impossible to divorce theory from practice. Scientific 
theory is always the theory of practice. It is the recognition 
of the relationships in hand, the cross-section of the given 
state of action to know what should be done. Everything 
would be indifferent if it were not for ends. The object of 
scientific investigation is to state controlling factors in the 
realization of ends. Science is necessary in order to economize 
effort, to determine the character of the ends proposed, to 
clear up the direction of the forward movement of experience. 



24 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

According to this conception of science the view taken by 
Whewell in the foregoing quotation is incorrect ; on the con- 
trary, " we value knowledge " chiefly because it is power and 
not because it is knowledge. A fact which will never be of 
value in any way in future reconstruction is not worthy of 
high appreciation, nor is it really a scientific fact. We value 
truth because the " truth has power to make us free," i.e., 
because it will enable us to rise superior to further obstacles. 
Nor does such value necessarily mean "market value." The 
mathematician who seeks truth for its own sake in the realm 
of pure abstraction may be lifted far above all commercial con- 
siderations ; nevertheless his work is purposive. He values 
each new discovery mainly because of its relation to the past 
and future, because it enables him to play the mathematical 
game (if I may be allowed the expression) in a new and better 
way. 

Scientific definition is a description of genesis. The mode 
of genesis in mathematical science is direct ; in experimental 
science indirect, but the method of the idea is the same in 
both. We do not proceed from individual to universal, but 
from individual to individual through the universal. Mere 
sequence gives us nothing. By studying antecedent and sub- 
sequent events in experimental science we arrive at law, 
corresponding to a principle of construction in mathematics; 
e.g., in physical science the principle of the conservation of 
energy, and in mathematics the general equation of the curve. 
Further, law is more than a mere description of what has 
happened ; it has a teleological implication. It is an abstrac- 
tion made for the purpose of enabling us to control future 
experience. It owes its interest and its formation to this fact. 
It is hypothetical and has normative value the moment it is 
recognized and stated. Its value lies in enabling us to get rid 
of confusion and irrelevant circumstances, and to simplify the 
process in the future. The moment you state the reasoning 



The Dynamic Conception of Science. 25 

process you get a rule, a something that helps for the next 
time. 

The scientific attitude arose in the attempt to control proc- 
esses of observation and interpretation, and to avoid error 
and get at a maximum of certainty. In all true scientific 
procedure, description and interpretation merge into each 
other. Any complete description is a statement of law, and 
the interrelations expressed by law are only enlarged and 
extended descriptions. Take, e.g., the case of a child who 
is placed under unhygienic schoolroom conditions likely to 
develop myopia. A complete examination and description 
would include a synthesis of relevant conditions, fine print of 
text-book, distance of eye from book, blackboard, etc., together 
with changing bodily conditions ; e.g., increasing convexity of 
cornea or anterior surface of lens. As fast as in our analysis 
we exclude irrelevant terms, e.g., the child's power of taste 
discrimination, we get a connection of relevant terms which 
applies beyond the immediate particular case described. If 
this relation really exists here it will exist elsewhere under 
exactly similar conditions. If such conditions are not attended 
by myopic development elsewhere they will not be here. 

Anything like an adequate statement and defense of the 
dynamic theory would lead us far into the realms of psychology, 
logic and metaphysics, and I must refer the reader to the 
writings of abler critics who have dealt with the subject in 
detail.* In the hope, however, of making my position suffi- 
ciently clear for the purpose in hand I shall examine some- 
what closely a definite example which may serve to illustrate 
the application of the dynamic conception to the analysis of 
the thought process, and the way in which educational theory, 
immediately pertaining to the subject of school classification, 
may be discovered and applied. 

*I desire to express my indebtedness to Professor Dewey for assistance derived from 
his elaboration of this view in a course of unpublished lectures in logic at the Univer- 
sity of Chicago. 



26 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

Take, for illustration, the case of a school principal who is 
assigning a new pupil to a class in his school and who forms 
the judgment, "This is a fourth-grade pupil." 

Static View. — Let us first briefly consider a purely mechan- 
ical mode of classification. The highest aim of the school 
principal may be to secure a certain fixed remuneration in 
return for certain work outlined in an agreement with a board 
of education. The classification of pupils is included in this 
work. In so far as he has considered the subject at all he 
thinks that children are placed in different grades because 
custom has so decided and because such classification saves 
trouble. A fourth-grade pupil is to him simply one who has 
gone through the first three grades, or who can pass a certain 
fixed entrance examination standard. This new pupil is a 
something to be assigned to a certain class as a botanist may 
assign a dead plant of a certain order to the corresponding 
shelf in his herbarium. It is so much child partially filled 
with knowledge and requiring pathological treatment in the 
way of more filling. The fourth grade is a place where such 
pupils are put through a process by which at the end of a 
certain fixed period they will know one third more than they 
did when they entered. Accordingly the pupil is given a 
hurried examination and forthwith "subsumed" under the 
fourth-grade "category" and becomes number so and so in 
the fourth grade. 

The example is not overdrawn. I have known cases where 
pupils were assigned to a lower grade than that for which 
they were fitted, solely because there were more vacant seats 
in the lower grade than in the proper room. 

Again, the principal may have taken a long pedagogical 
training and still make a static classification ; e.g-., he may 
have read or heard someone say that the fourth grade should 
contain pupils between the ages of eleven and thirteen years 
and may mechanically construct the following formal syllo- 
gism : 



The Dynamic Conception of Science. 27 

All pupils between the ages of eleven and thii'teen should 
be assigned to the fourth grade. 

This pupil is within this age limit. 

This pupil should be assigned to the fourth grade. 
In this way while nominally making a I'ational classification 
he may in reality be making a most irrational one. 

Dynamic View. — The fundamental difference between such 
static method and a dynamic method originates in the fact 
that any judgment in order to possess value must have arisen 
out of a necessity for the reconstruction of experience. There 
must have been a breakdown of the old and a building up of a 
new system. If such were not the case there would have been 
no interest, no attention, and the judgment would not have 
been made. The school principal deals with the problem pro- 
posed because its solution is necessary for the furtherance of 
some end which he has in view. He may, as in the foregoing 
static example, classify the pupil simply because he knows that 
he cannot receive his salary unless he performs such acts, and 
may care nothing in regard to how the pupil or society may 
be affected by the classification he makes. 

The school principal who classifies on a dynamic basis also 
finds reconstruction of experience necessary, but he approaches 
the subject from an entirely difierent standpoint. His aim is 
well considered, worthy and adequate, and his interest in the 
problem involves the highest ethical considerations. His 
immediate aim may be to have his school thoroughly organ- 
ized and every pupil properly occupied. The coming of the 
new pupil introduces an obstacle to the attainment of this 
end. Further, this unclassified pupil represents the point of 
experience where there is the greatest break, the greatest 
need of reconstruction. There may be numerous obstacles, and 
insight is required to select the point of greatest stress ; e.g., 
if the school fire-alarm rings at the time when the new pupil 
appears, and the principal proceeds to classify the pupil in 



28 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

place of responding to the alarm and making the judgment, 
"This building is on fire!" his judgment, "This is a fourth- 
grade pupil," while quite correct from a static standpoint is 
false from a functional, dynamic standpoint because it does not 
meet the requirements of the case. Each situation emerges 
out of the one which immediately preceded it and which has 
broken down. At first there is a vague, undifferentiated whole 
of experience consisting of principal, child, school, etc. When 
the principal begins to realize that experience needs readjust- 
ment, that there is resistance to the habitual flow, a difficulty 
to be overcome, an investigation to be made, then the situa- 
tion begins to become defined and to take the diflFerentiated 
form of a hoy to he classified, and aids to classification. The 
principal then adjusts himself to the problem in hand. The 
pupil is no longer a boy bringing a telegram, etc. He is now 
a boy to be classified. The principal is no longer the school 
principal with various duties, any of which may engage his 
attention. He is for the time being the classifier of this pupil. 

In this defining process, however, we do not have, as the 
static theory assumes, on the one hand, " this boy consisting 
of a small isolated fragment of the universe," and, on the 
other hand, the formal concept of " a fourth-grade pupil " to 
which this fragment is to be attached. What we really have 
is a forward movement of experience. " The this, the here, 
the now," emerging problematically out of a previous situation 
and moving on to a solution, locate the point at which thought 
is to be directed and reveal the obstacle which must be over- 
come. It is this boy who must be classified before the school 
will be properly organized. Further, "the this, here, and 
now " represents the entire system focused. This boy to be 
classified is related to everything else in the universe. This 
classification habit which the principal brings into play is 
related to all previous experience. 

A dynamic method of classification is based upon a principle 
of rational adaptation. On the one hand, there is the child — 



The Dynamic Conception of Science. 29 

a living, self-active personality with certain needs, desires, 
emotions, habits. He reacts dififerently to different stimuli 
and his development will be largely conditioned by his school 
environments. On the other hand, there are available various 
classes, teachers, etc. The pvirpose of classification is to place 
him in such a position in the system that under the changed 
conditions he may function at his best. It is a matter of 
great importance to the child and to society that he be located 
at the proper place. A mistake here is a mistake for life. 
The duty of the school principal is to make the best of the 
means at his command. There may be no class in his school 
exactly fitted to this boy's requirements, but of those at his 
disposal there is one which is the best fitted, and it is his 
business to endeavor to modify the modes of reaction already 
present so as to fit the requirements of this particular case. 
If he is bound by habit — if he can classify only such boys 
as he has classified in the past — he misses the characteristic 
features of the new situation. If he has no habits at all — if 
he possesses no knowledge of classification — he is helpless and 
can do nothing. In making the classification everything 
depends upon the power of insight which the school principal 
brings to bear upon the problem. 

In our example we have, on the one hand, the presentative 
element — the pupil to be classified ; and, on the other, the 
representative element — experience which will serve to facili- 
tate this classification. 

In the defining-relating, analytic-synthetic, inductive-deduc- 
tive, forward movement of attention, there is a constant 
interaction between these two elements. The orderly system 
of imagery, which the experienced principal brings to bear in 
testing and elaborating the presentational experience, serves 
as a standard, a scale, a tool, in reconstruction. It enables 
him to determine what to select, and how far back to go in the 
selection. He goes far enough back to get a firm footing — a 



30 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

reliable basis for future procedure. He selects accoi'ding 
to the emergencies of the case what he deems useful and 
necessary. He does not endeavor to learn all about the boy, 
but only that which serves functionally for present classifica- 
tion ; e.g., the color of the boy's eyes may be unnoticed 
while his knowledge of arithmetic is carefully tested. While 
looking backward there is at the same time a forward look, 
and there are several hypotlieses in the foreground of the 
principal's consciousness, each struggling for confirmation. 
From his first casual investigation he makes the inference, 
"This is a fourth-grade pupil," with the accompanying reserva- 
tion that he should not be surprised if on investigation the 
pupil might turn out to belong to the third grade. He now 
sets to work to prove or disprove his inference. 

As the trained botanist sees at a glance through a micro- 
scope certain things which a novice would never discover, and 
others which it would take him hours to find, so the skilled 
teacher, by judicious questioning quickly gains a knowledge of 
the conditions of the case. The reconstructive mental material 
furnished by experience enabled him to exercise prophetic 
vision. As on the lower planes the kinoesthetic image forms 
the " mental cue " to the motor act, so here there is the 
anticipation of the result, an idea of how this boy would 
react to the conditions if placed in a fourth grade. And thus 
under ordinary conditions the school principal can make the 
adjustment without danger of error. 

The problem of classification may, however, become very 
complicated in actual experience; e.g., the pupil may be 
above the reading standard of the fourth grade and below 
the arithmetic standard of the third grade and the parent 
may be very anxious to have the pupil assigned -to the 
highest possible grade. In such cases the principal often 
refrains from issuing his " fiat " without further experimen- 
tation. He postpones the decision and puts the pupil into the 



The Dynamic Conception of Science. 31 

crucible of actual grade experience. He knows that a pupil 
tested in a higher grade and then consigned to a lower is 
likely to fail from discouragement and he therefore makes 
the test in the third grade, it being distinctly understood that 
the arrangement is simply tentative. In this way a more 
definite and satisfactory reaction is secured and usually in the 
course of a day or two the matter is settled beyond a shadow 
of doubt. Then, and not till then, the principal completes 
the judgment, "This is a fourth-grade pupil." 

Now, the difference between the static and dynamic modes 
of classification is not a temporal one. The classification may 
be made more quickly in the latter case than in the former, 
for the principal knows exactly how to proceed. The differ- 
ence is one of function, attitude, insight. The claim made 
in this thesis is that the dynamic method of classification is 
scientific and the static unscientific, and, further, that what- 
ever has been or can be discovered which will aid the principal 
in making such dynamic classification may properly be said to 
be included in the science of education. Such assistance may 
be gained from a judicious study of many subjects — ethics, 
sociology, psychology, history of education, school organization, 
etc. 

There are different stages in the development of child life. 
There are subjects of study, ways of presenting them, and 
kinds of surroundings — physical, social, ethical, aesthetic — 
which at these respective stages are especially adapted to the 
highest educational advance of the learner. These relations 
have been pretty systematically worked out in detail so that 
now there is, as we shall see later, an organized body of scien- 
tific knowledge on the various lines suggested at the disposal 
of anyone who will take the trouble to refer to it. This 
general educational theory has been studied in its application 
to the special problem of classification. It has been brought 
to educational consciousness that tlie proper time to promote 



32 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

a boy may not be when the whole class or a majority of the 
class are ready, but when he has reached the promotion point. 
It has been realized, further, that age, initiative power, health 
and other elements should be taken into consideration and 
that a knowledge requirement by itself is not always a suffi- 
cient criterion for classification. 

It must not be forgotten, however, that such residual knowl- 
edge concerning classification of pupils cannot be used in its 
primal form. Its only value is to afibrd insight into the prob- 
lem, and to be most helpful it . must be assimilated. The 
school principal must have thought it out. He must have 
experimented sufficiently to have made the facts his own, 
and to be able to sympathize with, i.e., to put himself in the 
place of, the pupil, and consider the situation from the pupil's 
standpoint. In addition to such theoretical knowledge he 
should be familiar with the materials which are at his dis- 
posal. The number of grades in the school, the maximum 
and minimum qualifications of the pupils in respective grades, 
the nature of the work being done, the characteristic powers 
of different teachers — a familiarity with these and many other 
details will prove of value. 

We have thus far considered the school principal as taking 
an interest in this case because it presents an obstacle in his 
experience requiring reconstruction. In order to obtain his 
ends this pupil is to be classified and he solves the problem as 
a matter of economy and utility. But he may have a scientific 
interest in the case — in its bearing upon educational system, 
in its power to furnish an instrument for future classification. 
This phase reveals a different attitude on the part of the 
observer. 

Scientific treatment originates in the proof process. The 
problem becomes more and more complex and, as in the 
foregoing example, we start in to prove, or disprove, an 
inference made. The process of reconstruction may become 



The Dynamic Conception of Science. 33 

so extended, may require so much development and elabor- 
ation, that we become interested in the development of the 
technique., and, for the time being, the practical phase is 
submerged. Instead of being interested in proof we are 
now interested in getting a technique for suggesting and 
solving problems. The mind assumes a distinctly experi- 
mental and reflective attitude, like that of the physical 
scientist in a laboratory investigation. We proceed to 
develop and to test hypotheses. We create artificial condi- 
tions for experimentation. We exercise the greatest possible 
care in observation, interpretation, elaboration and statement. 
Thus we arrive at law. 

I hope to show in subsequent chapters that it is possible to 
formulate laws of educational science in this way, and that 
a large body of such results have been reached scientifically. 
My contention is, however, that these laws are of especial 
value, not as possessing finality in themselves, but as abstrac- 
tions made for purposes of control of the educational process. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE DYNAMIC CONCEPTION OF EDUCATION. 

The definitions and systems of education proposed from 
time to time have been reflections of the philosophical views 
held implicitly or explicitly by those who have been instru- 
mental in their construction. 

1. The Information Theory. — The extreme, dualistic concep- 
tion which posited ultimate reality as external to the individual, 
whether it took the form of Plato's Eidos (which was super- 
sensuous but nevertheless external), or that of the measured, 
spatial object of the materialist, issued in an educational 
theory that considered the individual a receptacle to be filled 
with static knowledge concerning external types or objects, 
and made information the prime, if not the sole, factor in 
education. 

2. The Development Theory. — At the other pole of this 
dualistic view we find the subjective, idealistic conception that 
" mind makes nature," from which was developed an educa- 
tional theory of spontaneity expressed by the words : 

*' There is an inmost center in us all 
Where truth abides in fullness, » • * 
***** and to know 
Rather consists in opening out a way 
Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape 
Than in effecting entry for a light 
Supposed to be without. " 

In accordance with the most extreme conception of this theory, 
an eflfort was made to have the child spin the universe out of 
his own inner consciousness. 

34 



The Dynamic Conception of Education. 35 

The information method proved inadequate because it pre- 
sented to the mind material without regard to its suitability 
and without attention to its assimilation. The development 
view failed because it furnished no proper content for the mind 
to work upon and spent time in 

" Dipping buckets into empty wells 
And growing old in drawing nothing out." 

3. The Follow-Nature Theory. — From this double failure 
emerged a third view closely resembling the development 
theory but reflecting (though imperfectly) two important 
advances in modern thought, viz. : a reaction against the 
static, dualistic philosophy and an increased appreciation of 
the results of natural science investigation. This third view 
in its extreme form may be summarized as follows : The 
advocates of the information and development methods have 
made a mistake in divorcing mind from matter ; " intuitions 
without concepts are blind, and concepts without intuitions 
are empty ; " accordingly both the physical and psychical 
phases must be considered in education. The information 
theory is right in holding that there are important facts out- 
side the child which must be learned. The development 
theory is right in holding that all education must be self- 
education. Both are wrong in establishing an artificial method 
which has interfered with the process of natural development. 
They have made the child self-conscious — like the centiped 
that got along well enough until he began to count his legs, 
when he became bewildered and fell into the ditch. We must 
follow nature. On the biological and psychical sides " the 
genesis of knowledge in the race conforms to the genesis of 
knowledge in the individual." Do not interfere with the 
child's development. Let him discover everything for liimself 
and abide by the discipline of consequences. If he puts his 
finger into the fire and is burned he will not put his finger 
into the fire the next time. He cannot learn to swim without 



36 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

going into the water. Let him alone and when the proper 
time comes he will go in of his own accord and develop his 
own individual method, imitating as much as is necessary. 
An instructor does more harm than good. The result of 
instruction in swimming is to render the child artificial, con- 
strained, meclianical, self-conscious, and eventually to spoil 
what would otherwise have been a good swimmer. 

Now, this is a very insidious argument and one which in a 
more or less modified form has made a host of converts, 
including many eminent men. Its fallacies have been fre- 
quently exposed, but it dies hard because it is based in part 
upon a dynamic conception which when properly understood 
and applied is the most vitalizing principle of all activity. 

Let us consider for a moment the origin of the true con- 
ception which this theory has only in part understood. 
Perhaps Hegel's greatest contribution to philosophy was that 
he developed the view that "being" and "non-being" are 
one and their common term is "becoming."* He says 
(Hegel, I. 385), "The infinite expansion of nature, and abso- 
lute retraction of the ego upon itself, are fundamentally 
identical, yet, both being equally real, spirit is higher than 
nature. For though in nature we have the realization — the 
infinitely-diversified mediation of the absolute — yet spirit, as 
being essentially self-conscious, when it draws back the 
universe into itself as it does in knowledge, at once includes 
in itself the outward, expanding totality of this manifold 
world, and at the same time overreaches and idealizes it, 
taking away its externality to itself and to the mind, and 
reflecting it all into the unity of thought." 

This attitude, reinforced by recent developments of physical 
and biological science, has powerfully afiected the trend of all 
modern thought. Its tendency has been to substitute concrete 
relationships for absolute rights, reciprocity for independence, 
and evolution for revolution. In its best form it has striven 

*See Hegel-Caird, p. 163. 



The Dynamic Conception of Education. 37 

to conserve all that was good and beautiful and true in the 
past and to enrich the inherited material by transferring and 
adapting it to present requirements in such a way as to work 
for the general enlargement of human interests and privileges. 

The great defects in the "follow-nature" theory of education 
are that it ignores this heritage of the race and forgets the 
true aim of education and the means to the attainment of 
that end 

4. The Dynamic Coyiception. — The conception of education 
advocated in the following pages means evolution, but evolu- 
tion hastened and directed by reason. As we shall see, the 
purpose of education is to socialize the child, to enable him to 
gain power to help himself and others. In order to do this 
he must learn to reconstruct his experience in the easiest and 
best way. On the knowledge side instead of following the 
slow, natural process of discovery pursued by the primitive 
savage he must cross-section the advance movement and in a 
few years pass over a course to a position which it has taken 
thousands of years and numerous stages of civilization to 
reach. It is neither possible nor desirable that he should 
know all that has been or can be learned. There must be 
judicious selection. Nor is this selected knowledge a body of 
fact to be taken on as a dead burden by the learner. It is a 
something which has existed in the consciousness of others 
and must be translated into his consciousness as power for 
future achievement. Nor is it always to be learned in the 
order in which it was discovered by the race. The child 
should not be permitted to follow every fickle and transitory 
interest but only those interests which he would possess if he 
were fully conscious of the most vital needs of the present 
situation. It is in this abbreviating, translating process that 
the teacher participates as "guide, philosopher and friend" 
to aid in the proper preparation of mind and in the proper 
selection and presentation of material. Society provides both 
school and teacher, in order that the individual may realize 



38 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

the highest purpose of education in the most rapid and 
thorough-going way. 

It may not be out of place to remark in passing that the 
" follow-nature " theory is often urged as an argument against 
the professional training of teachers. We are told that the 
only way to learn to teach is by teaching, that if one is a born 
teacher he will succeed, and if not he must take the conse- 
quences. This is the argument, in a new dress, formerly 
urged in favor of the quack-herb doctor as against the trained 
physician. Its advocates overlook the fact that the theory 
pressed to its ultimate conclusion entirely does away with the 
necessity for any teacher. 

If such control, abbreviation of labor and translation of 
knowledge as we have referred to, be entirely unnecessary 
then the child requires neither school nor teacher. " Follow 
nature " means either that civilization has left us nothing that 
is worth learning or else that a teacher can be of no service in 
facilitating the process of mastering it. Similarly, those who 
advocate that the only way to learn to teach is by teaching 
must mean either that thus far nothing of value has been dis- 
covered regarding teaching, or that what has been discovered 
cannot be learned in any other way than by rediscovering it 
in the original primitive fashion. Their position further asserts 
that beginners have the right to practice upon children, and 
that it is the duty of parents and public to allow children to 
be made the suffering "stepping-stones" on which the would- 
be teacher is to "rise to higher things." 

Much has been said and written concerning the injury to 
children resulting from child-study experiments and from the 
teaching of pupil-teachers in training-schools. But in most 
schools these evils have now been reduced to a minimum or 
entirely overcome. Child study can be carried on most effect- 
ively without the child being conscious that he is being studied, 
and a pupil-teacher may prepare a lesson so thoroughly and 
teach it so well that the results are quite as satisfactory as 



The Dynamic Conception of Education. 39 

those secured by the regular teacher. On the other hand, one 
seldom hears a word of protest against that most protracted, 
and dangerous kind of child study and unscientific experiment 
which is inflicted upon children when the untrained novice 
without any special preparation for teaching — without even 
the appreciation of a necessity for such preparation — and with 
no critic to notice errors or suggest improvements, plunges 
in haphazard and blunders along year after year getting 
(so-called) "experience." 

The problem of education does not admit of so easy a solu- 
tion as to enable the teacher to be quite sure that he will not 
make shipwreck if he simply trusts to blind enthusiasm and 
instinctive sympathy without taking the trouble to inquire 
what port he sails for or the best route by which to reach his 
destination. 

To return to the subject of our former discussion, if, instead 
of adopting "information," "development," " folio w-nature," 
or any other of the many educational shibboleths which have 
been proposed from time to time, we carefully investigate the 
subject from the functional standpoint we shall see that each 
of these views is narrow and segmental. 

In considering the aim and method of education we must 
take a wider outlook. True education is both instruction and 
development. It is natural and artificial. It concerns the 
individual in his totality — physical, mental, social, spiritual, 
religious. It is for the present and for the future, for mastery 
and for service, for the individual and for society. It involves 
the self-activity, the self-realization of the learner, the guarding 
and controlling influence and inspiration of parent and teacher, 
and the assistance of the community and the state. It is not 
one but all in proper equipoise. These characteristics are not 
isolated, static, unrelated entities. They are simply different 
factors in education, angles from which the process of the 
reconstruction of educational experience may be viewed. They 



40 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

all enter into the totality of a harmonious educational system 
and find their center in the remaking of present experience. 

In the laudable desire to make of education a preparation 
for the duties and responsibilities of adult life there has been 
a tendency to shift the focus of attention upon the future to 
the neglect of the present, and to forget that we are not gifted 
with such prophetic vision as to be able to forecast with any 
degree of certainty the conditions under which the child is 
going to be placed in adult life, and, further, that, in any 
event, the best way to prepare for the future is to live the 
present life in the best way. The result of ignoring this fact 
has been to rob the child of the gratification of present achieve- 
ment and to render him unnatural and unpractical. The focus 
of the universe and of life for the individual is the present 
situation. What is done in education must be done at this 
point in the reconstruction of special experience under special 
conditions of adaptation. The starting point and the instru- 
ments are found here, and the criterion of value of any educa- 
tional instrument is its adequacy in the facilitation of this 
present reconstruction. In other words, education is " the life 
to be lived." 

For purposes of clearness I shall now state my fundamental 
position dogmatically and endeavor to substantiate it at a 
later stage. 

If we take the case of any individual learner and define the 
situation " the this, the here, the now " to the very last inch, 
e.g., boy, teacher, schoolroom conditions, time of day, etc., then 
from the very nature of things the following statements will 
hold true in every case without exception : 

1. Individual Characteristics. — This learner possesses certain 
tendencies, habits, capacities, adaptations, interests, which are 
different from those of any other child and different from those 
which he himself has previously had or will subsequently possess. 

2. Aim. — There are certain educational aims which for him 
are preferable to any others ; e.g., development of character. 



The Dynamic Conception of Education. 41 

including knowledge and control, is a superior aim to that of 
the accumulation of wealth for the sole purpose of sensuous 
gratification. 

3. Means. — There are available certain educational means 
which, both as to content and form, are for his particular 
conditions best fitted for the attainment of this highest ideal. 

4. Material — (a) Subject-Matter of Study. — There is a 
certain kind of stimulus to the learning activity which is 
superior to any other content which could be selected. As 
shown in Chapter III this stimulus presents a problem for 
solution, an obstacle to the habitual flow, a something which 
renders reconstructive thought necessary. The subject-matter 
is not to be chosen at random. There are certain forms of 
study which would be injurious to the child and subversive of 
the true aim of education — e.g., the most successful methods 
of picking pockets ; there are others which would be com- 
paratively valueless — e.g., the names of certain unimportant 
islands in a distant ocean ; there are still others which might 
be very valuable to another child, but not to this child, and 
so on. In other words, there is some particular form of recon- 
struction, be it a problem in algebra, the consideration of a 
literary selection, the making of a thermometer or some other 
form of definite activity, which for this child here and now 
is preferable to any other which could be presented. 

(6) Co7iditions of Study. — The surroundings of the learner, 
his companions, the hygienic conditions, schoolroom furnish- 
ings, etc., influence his development in large measure; e.g, 
a temperature of sixty-five degrees may be preferable to 
one of sixty degrees, a male teacher may be preferable to a 
female teacher, or vice versa. There are forms of such external 
conditions under which the child may be placed which for this 
particular child at this period are superior to any others, and 
unless the best available surroundings are secured his educa- 
tion is interfered with. 



42 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

b. Methods. — There are certain methods of teaching and 
learning which for this child are preferable to any other. 
There is a best form of presenting the material as regards 
quality, quantity and sequence, and a best form of mind 
reaction upon this material when presented ; e.g., mathe- 
matics may be the best study for this hour, but manual 
■training may be preferable to mathematics for the next hour. 
At some future time percentage may be the best subject, but 
to-day the stage of advancement may be such that addition of 
fi'actions should occupy the attention. It may be better at 
some other time simply to tell the child the fact to be learned 
or to let him discover it without any external aid. At this 
time, however, the best thing to do may be to suggest and 
develop through sequential presentation of material, and 
through a form of questioning which will direct the focus of 
attention upon greatest difficulties in such a way as to lead to 
rapid solution. In this lesson it may be best to emphasize 
certain points which in themselves are comparatively unim- 
portant but which prepare the mind to react upon material 
to be presented in the future. On another occasion it may 
be better to emphasize the main fact to the exclusion of all 
others. Again, the physical and mental condition of the pupil 
may be such that sleep is preferable to any kind of activity. 

The criterion of excellence of subject-matter, external aid 
or method, is always its functional aptitude in fuinishing 
that kind of problem best fitted to the present powers of the 
child and to the true aim of education. 

By the term available (p. 41) I mean within the possibilities 
of the case ; e.g., it may be true that at this stage in the boy's 
career expensive travel would be more valuable than school 
study, but if the travel-scheme is entirely impractfcable it 
need not enter into our consideration. The best available 
conditions for a boy in a class of fifty pupils are very diiferent 
from those for the same pupil in a class of thirty. The 
teacher who would avoid discouragement does well to remem- 



The Dynamic Conception of Education. 43 

ber that there can never be responsibility unless there is 
corresponding power; in other words, "if we ought we can." 

As has been pointed out the individual never remains the 
same for any appreciable period of time. In the forward 
movement of experience the shifting of the focus of the 
present reveals constant change, constant growth. There is 
a continual breaking down of the old and a building \ip of 
the new under conditions which render education possible. 
The very essence of education is to see that at every step of 
the process this reconstruction is effected in the best possible 
way for the individual and for society. The form and value 
of the reconstruction at every point is conditioned upon the 
aim selected and the means adopted for its attainment. 

Educational science arose from an effort to gain control of 
the educational process, to secure instruments of insight which 
would enable the educator to make the wisest selection of aims 
and means. I shall endeavor to establish not only that the 
construction of such a science is possible, but also that it has 
been in a measure realized, that there exists a body of tested 
and systematized knowledge which properly falls under the 
category of educational science, and which when properly 
apprehended and applied is of genuine assistance to the 
teacher. 

It is not claimed that there have been, or can be, discovered 
educational facts or laws which when memorized will enable 
the teacher to posit with certainty the best method of pro- 
cedure in each particular case. The contention is that by 
following a certain course of preparatory investigation the 
teacher will gain such insight as will enable him to under- 
stand the particular situation in its complex bearings — its 
needs and the proper mode of response — in a way that would 
have been entirely impossible without such preliminary 
training. 

I shall next proceed to a closer analysis of the aims and 
means of education. 



CHAPTER V. 

EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND MKANS. 

No clearly-defined differentiation can be made respecting 
the true aims of education and the means to their attainment, 
and any analysis must, in the nature of the case, be abstract, 
static and artificial. However, for purposes of clearness in 
our discussion, the following may be of service : 

Education : 

[Knowledge! attitude, control, culture, 
\ Discipline / character. 
II. Its Means : 

A. Material or Instruments : 

1. The self-active individual to be educated. 

2. The surroundings of the individual : 

(a) The subject-matter of study, as literature, 
art, science. 

(6) The social factor, as parent, teacher, com- 
panions. 

(c) Direct stimulus to the learning activity ; 

e.g. — in the study of a mountain in 
geography — an actual mountain or the 
artificial material, sand molding-board, 
etc., by means of which the definition 
of a mountain may be illustrated. 

(d) Physical conditions which render educa- 

tion possible ; e.g., food, air, etc. 



Educational Aims and Means. 45 

B. Methods or Form : 

1. The selection and arrangement of material, i.e., 

the proper presentation of problems. 

2. The securing of proper conditions for study. 

3. The proper direction of the learner's activity 

upon the material presented. 

We have seen that the function of educational science is to 
furnish an insight regarding the highest educational aims and 
the most effective means to their attainment. Let us now 
proceed to a consideration of the basis upon which these aims 
and means are formulated. 

I. Educational Aims,— The school is a social institution 
which owes its origin and maintenance to the belief that it is 
for the good of the state and of the individual that the child 
should be educated. As Doctor Dewey says, "The purpose 
of education is to socialize the child." The curriculum, the 
methods of study, the entire school machinery, will, therefore, 
be determined by the views held regarding the most perfect 
type of socialized individual. 

Any narrow static view which makes the summum bonum 
consist in formal discipline, unassimilated information, or 
superficial polish, falls far short of the true ideal. 

What the child needs in order to make him a valuable 
factor in present and future social life is a complete mastery 
of himself, a power and willingness always to choose the par- 
ticular line of conduct that shall most highly develop his own 
personality and yet be most completely compatible with the 
best interests of others. In other words, what he needs is 
character. 

At the outset he is comparatively helpless and at the mercy 
of his surroundings. His activities are instinctive or impulsive. 
His aims are of the vaguest sort, and his selections of a reflex 
type, resembling those of the plant and lower animal in their 
adaptations for survival. He is absorbed in the present. 



46 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

He soon begins, however, to develop self-consciousness. He 
sets up ends or aims and goes about realizing them. He 
gains control of his own organism. He forms habits which 
leave him free for more deliberate action and for the forma- 
tion of more remote and comprehensive ends. He advances 
from physical and prudential to moral control. He identifies 
himself with those about him, cultivates feelings of love and 
sympathy and forms ideas of his rights and obligations as a 
member of society. He reflects on his duties to family, fellow- 
men, country and God. With this upward development of 
freedom, these more comprehensive ends become laws. These 
laws, though sometimes apparently conflicting, may be general- 
ized into a permanent principle of conformity to highest law. 
Finally, this principle of conformity to highest law forms a 
criterion for all impulses and desires, and the individual 
" finds his moral good in conformity to the ideal standard 
set up by the reason and willed by the reason " (Watson's 
Hedonistic Theories, p. 136). Thus the individual attains 
character. 

Character in this sense means culture, but a culture which 
combines both knowledge and discipline. If knowledge is 
ignored the experience lacks in adequate content for further 
adaptation. If discipline receives no attention the informa- 
tion is not translated into a system but remains unrelated 
and proves a dead weight in future advance. 

True knowledge means increase of power of interpretation. 
As a result of the assimilation of intellectual and moral food 
from the social storehouse the individual sees everything in a 
new light. All activity takes on a fuller and wider meaning. 
True discipline, on the other hand, resulting from scientific, 
orderly, systematic procedure, gives to the content -a proper 
form of adaptation in relation to social requirement. Culture 
or character, then, rightly understood is the whole individual 
thus socialized whose productive powers have been so con- 



Educational Aims and Means. 47 
J* 

trolled and enriched that his activity now possesses explicit 
social value. 

Any narrow aim in educational procedure is apt to develop 
into a passive, individual, caste selfishness. Scholarly attain- 
ment, skill, refinement of manner, are then sought, not for 
the true end of education but for purposes of self-aggrandize- 
ment and exclusive privilege. The dynamic view, on the 
contrary, is based upon a principle of cooperation. It holds 
that without the advantages of contact, both with society and 
with its resources, there can be no education worthy of the 
name. The individual who is truly cultured rises into social 
consciousness, realizes that he is a member of society, embody- 
ing in himself the attainments of civilization, and that he is 
a social instrument in the perpetuation and improvement of 
these attainments. He brings to society certain individual 
capacities. Society furnishes aims and means for the trans- 
formation of these activities so as to give them social value. 

This does not imply that there is a something called society 
which exists apart from the individuals composing it, nor 
that the individual loses his identity and becomes swallowed 
up in society. It simply means that he becomes functionally 
an organic element in the larger diversified whole which reacts 
again upon his individual experience, rendering individual 
unity richer and more complete. 

An individual of good character, then, possesses good 
judgment — a keen sense of discriminative insight which sees 
things in proper perspective and proportion. He is conscious 
of the respective worths of elements and is able to select the 
important and abiding factors. He is more, however, than a 
cold logic engine ; he possesses a sensitiveness which " feels a 
stain as a wound," an emotional delicacy or responsiveness to 
certain elements of worth which cannot be • mathematically 
measured. Finally, he possesses force of character. He is 
able to arrest the onward flow, to examine the situation, to 



48 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

decide in conformity with his convictions and aims, and, wlien 
obstacles or temptations arise, to persist in the execution of 
his choice. 

The Ethical Factor. — In practical experience the educator 
is always met with a concrete situation and the question is 
what ought to be done next. This question cannot be properly 
answered without careful reflection, nor can it be disposed of 
by dogmatic rule. If, as has been said, education "is the life 
to be lived," the most vital of all questions is what kind 
of life should be lived, what is the ideal type of life. The 
educator must be able to go farther than a mechanical appli- 
cation of a fixed ethical standard. He must have the insight 
to cross-section the present experience and to investigate 
this situation and determine what under these conditions 
ought to be done. Such insight can be gained only by a 
careful and extended examination of the educational problem 
in its religious, moral and sociological relations. A profes- 
sional training course for teachers should afford opportunity 
for such examination and for access to the best literature on 
the subject.* 

II. Educational Means.— When we proceed further, and ask 
to what extent and in what ways the educational process is 
to be facilitated through an insight furnished by educational 
science regarding the means of attaining these ends, we are 
again faced with a complicated problem. 

A. Materials. — As we investigate the various details sug- 
gested in our table we find that in a certain sense the 
materials or instruments to be used are furnished ready to 
hand by forces over which the educator can exert no direct 
control. 

*See Aristotle's N ichomachean Ethics, Peters. ' 

Christianitii ami Idealisvi, Watson. 
2 Vie Stud)/ of Ethics, Dewey. 
Prolegomena to Ethics, Green. 
Plato's Theaetetus, Dyde. 
Froebel's Educational Laws, Hughes. 
Herbart and the Herbartians, De Garnio. 



Educational Aims and Means. 49 

The individual learner is born into the world with certain 
physical, intellectual and moral potentialities, with instinctive 
impulses, aptitudes, tendencies, which will always condition 
his educational advance. Nor are his native surroundings 
more subservient or less important. His social relations are 
in great measure unchangeable. The wealth of his inheritance 
in the realms of literature, art and science cannot be augmented 
by any direct educational fiat, but slowly increases as a result 
of the perseverance and sagacity of the race. His physical 
environment, as regards stimulus to the learning activity, Mnd 
the conditions under which such stimulus is received, appears 
to be beyond the pale of educational influence. 

And yet in regard to each of these details educational 
science has indirectly an important work to perform. It 
emphasizes the advantages to be gained by a proper start in 
education ; e.g., it finds on the negative side that the child 
born with weak physical or mental powers, in an uncivilized 
community, under conditions of extreme poverty, is by each 
of these circumstances seriously handicapped in the educational 
race. It endeavors to determine the ideal types of individual 
and of surroundings best fitted for the attainment of the most 
satisfactory results in the educational process and is, therefore, 
deeply interested in the investigation of ways and means for 
the proper production of such types. 

The educational science of the future will, no doubt, pay 
much greater attention than is at present paid to the consider- 
ation of prenatal problems and to such adjustment of wealth 
conditions as shall render it possible to give to every child 
a liberal education. Such investigation is biological, socio- 
logical and political in character, the psychology involved 
in it being rather sociological than individual. When treated 
from the educational standpoint the results of such investiga- 
tion may fairly be included under the head of educational 
science, and should form a part of every teacher's training 
course. 



50 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

B. Methods. — Let us now proceed to a consideration of the 
methods by which these materials can be best utilized in 
education in order to attain the highest aims in the most 
rapid and thorough-going manner. This, after all, is the 
practical problem of education — the one with which the 
teacher has primarily to do, for usually the learner and his 
surroundings are existing conditions and the teacher has to 
make the best of them. 

I shall endeavor to establish that in this most important 
and direct phase of the teacher's work the greatest aid is 
furnished by a study of psychology and the cognate sciences 
of biology, neurology and physiology, and by a study of the 
history of education. 

1. The Psychological Factor. — As a preliminary step it may 
be wise to clear the ground by a brief consideration of certain 
misconceptions which have tended to create a reaction against 
psychology as an aid in the preparation of teachers. 

1st. It is sometimes urged that there are few, if any, 
psychological facts upon which psychologists are themselves 
agreed and that, therefore, no assistance can be derived from 
psychology. 

Now, this objection arises from a misapprehension of the 
actual conditions. It is true that since the opening of the 
first experimental laboratory in psychology by Professor 
Wundt at Leipsic, in 1878, very great changes have taken 
place in methods of conducting psychological study and great 
advances have been made along certain lines of psychological 
investigation. 

With til is rapid development new discoveries and contro- 
verted opinions have attracted public attention to such an 
extent that established facts have been in a sense forgotten. 
An investigation will show that there is a large body of 
psychological knowledge upon which all are in substantial 
a«yreement and much of this knowledge is of the greatest 



Educational Aims and Means. 51 

value in education ; e.g., the principle that " concentration 
of attention is an aid to memory " is one which has been 
universally admitted and practically applied from the earliest 
times. The modern psychological movement has verified the 
statement by scientific experiment, has given us a better 
insight into the true meaning of concentration, attention, and 
memory, and has thus rendered the principle a more valuable 
educational instrument than formerly. Thousands of similar 
examples might be quoted where there has never been dis- 
agreement regarding the fundamental facts. 

When we examine the field of controverted theory we find 
that psychological science is building upon sure foundations 
and, further, that those factors which in their nature would 
be of most value to education are those concerning which 
there is little or no difference of opinion. 

The example usually quoted in substantiation of the objec- 
tion is that of the many difierent-color theories held by 
Wundt, Hering, Young, Helmholtz, etc. It is pointed out 
that leading psychologists devote much space to the views of 
the rival claimants, and that almost every psychologist has a 
theory of his own.* 

Now, the " color theories " referred to as controversial are 
attempts, which thus far have proved only partially successful, 
to conceive a process in the retina which could be correlated 
with the facts of consciousness. In other words, each color 
theory proposes an answer to the question, " What chemical or 
mechanical processes take place in the eye — more specifically 
in the retina — when I see, or have sensations of, light and 
color ? " Obviously the correct reply to this question must be 
in harmony with the facts of color sensation — e.g., the pheno- 
mena of color mixture, color contrast, after images, and color 
blindness. 

There is still considerable difference of opinion as to what 
are the actual facts, but the points in dispute are being con- 

* See Outlines, of Psychology, Kiilpe, p. 136. 



52 The Possibility of a ^Science of Education. 



stantly narrowed down through scientific research, and as a 
result some color theories have been entirely discredited and 
others greatly modified. While the discovery of a theory of 
visual sensations which would explain all the phenomena upon 
a psycho-physical basis would be of great interest to the educa- 
tor, and might ultimately prove of much value, it is rather 
with the facts regarding color phenomena that education is 
most deeply concerned, and more particularly with that large 
body of facts which are now universally agreed upon. 

For example, as regards color blindness of pupils the advan- 
tages accruing from the possession of psychological knowledge 
by the teacher would be the following : 

{a) Such knowledge would aid in determining whether color 
blindness is sufiiciently important to enter into the problem of 
control of the learning process. There are conceivable cases 
— for instance, that of studying a colored map in geography — 
where the color-blind pupil might be unable to understand 
presented material .and would thus be placed at a disadvantage. 
After an investigation of such cases the question would be, Is 
the abnormality of sufficient importance and frequency and is 
its remedy sufficiently practicable to render it wise to spend 
time in considering particular cases I 

(h) It would aid in determining what are the phenomena of 
the abnormal condition and how the defect may be discovered. 
Here such facts as that color-blind children are usually very 
sensitive in regard to the defect, that they are likely to make 
certain kinds of color errors, and that the sorting of yarns is 
probably the most satisfactory test of color-blindness, would 
be aids to the location of the difficulty. 

(c) It would aid, by furnishing answers to such questions as 
the following, in determining by what means the abnormal 
conditions could be overcome : I s there any mechanical device 
which if adopted would overcome the difficulty as spectacles 



Educational Aims and Means. 53 

do in cases of myopia 1 * Is there any corrective form of 
muscular exercise? Is there another available avenue of 
approach, by means of adaptation of present partial-color 
sensations or through visual or auditory channels or verbal 
explanation 1 

Now, there is scarcely any difference of opinion regarding 
the results of investigation along any of these three lines of 
inquiry. 

2nd. Another popular conception which has tended to 
prevent psychology from being used as an aid in teaching 
finds expression in the opinion that there is no relation 
between psychology and education. 

[a) This objection may arise from an incorrect view of the 
scope of psychology, an objection which vanishes when we 
consider what psychology really is. 

A recent writer of high authority says (Stout, Manual of 
Psychology, p. 12), "Since the whole world, as it exists for an 
individual consciousness, whether from a practical, theoretical, 
or aesthetic point of view, has come so to exist through prior 
mental process, it may be said that there is no objective fact 
which is not capable of being utilized by the psychologist. 
From this point of view we may say, with Dr. Ward, that 
' the whole choir of heaven and furniture of earth ' so far as 
they are known are data for psychology (article ' Psychology,' 
Encyclopcedia Britannica, 9th ed., Vol. XX, p. 38). So, too, 
are all works of imagination ; e.g., the Hind, or Hamlet, or 
Grimm's Fairy Tales; and all rules of conduct; e.g., Roman 
law, the Brahman ritual, the four books of Confucius and 
Mencius. We must, however, carefully note that mere 
examination of mental products is valueless for psychology, 
except in so far as it helps us to trace mental process." 

Now, the ability to " trace mental process " is a necessity 
for the proper selection and presentation of material and the 

*See article by Professor Kirschman, University of Toronto Studies, Psychological 
Series No. 1. 



54 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

proper direction of the learner's activity, and, therefore, if 
Professor Stout's view be correct, psychological study is neces- 
sary for the teacher; e.g., regarding foreign-language teaching 
Professor Findlay says {^Report of Educational Subjects, London, 
England, '98, Vol. II, p. 353), " If it were possible for teachers 
of foreign languages to come to some agreement as to the 
essential nature of a native language, of a second language, 
and of the processes by which these grow in the mind, we 
should not be far from an agreement as to their place in the 
curriculum, and as to methods for teaching them." 

I hope to show somewhat definitely in the next chapter how 
in such selection and presentation of material psychology is of 
genuine assistance to the educator. 

(6) Again, in contrast with this too narrow view of the scope 
of psychology the objection may arise from the other pole and 
may be due to a reaction against exaggerated claims for psy- 
chology in education, for with some "educational science" and 
"psychology" are synonymous terms. 

It is important to remember that psychology in this con- 
nection has its limitations as well as its possibilities. (1) A 
training in psychology as an aid to the teacher can never take 
the place of scholarship, aptitude or practical experience. 
While conceding this point it should not be forgotten that 
psychological study per se possesses a culture value not to be 
despised, and many teachers have also found that through its 
study — especially in the branch of child study — they have 
been awakened to an interest in, and a sympathy with, 
children which they would not otherwise have possessed. 
Further, the value of experience in teaching is greatly 
enhanced by the power to appreciate the salient points of 
such experience — a power which is greatly increased by psy- 
chological study. (2) Psychology does not furnish fixed and 
inexorable laws which may be applied to all schoolroom cases. 
It furnishes instruments of insight which must be ration- 



Educational Aims and Means. 55 

ally adapted to the needs of each new situation. (3) All 
of psychological science is not of direct educational value. 
Much of what is properly included in a university course in 
psychology is scarcely of more value to the teacher than to the 
mathematician or to the civil engineer. (4) Education is not 
a subdepartment of psychology. To be of most service in 
education the psychological facts must be considered from 
the educational standpoint. While education owes much to 
psychology, some of the most fruitful fields of psychological 
research owe their discovery to suggestions originating in 
educational investigation. Thus education and psychology 
reinforce each other. (5) Psychology, as we have seen, does 
not cover the whole ground of the aims and means of educa- 
tion. It does not tell why we study, except in a selective 
sense, or tvhat to study, but it aids us materially in determining 
how to study. 

2. The Historical Factor. — A study of the history of civi- 
lization, and more particularly of that phase termed " the 
history of education," is of the greatest assistance in the 
solution of educational problems and thus furnishes valuable 
contribution to educational science. This involves not only a 
study of educational aims and means adopted in the past, and 
of the successes and failures which have attended certain 
lines of action, but also an investigation of what is now being 
done, of the best systems of education, courses of study, text- 
books, and methods of school organization, management and 
teaching, at present obtaining in various countries of the 
world. Such empirical investigation serves to guard against 
error, to suggest lines of improvement and to act as a balance- 
wheel to the abstract and ofttimes impracticable theories 
elaborated from the philosophical side. Thus by a minimum 
of effort we may avail ourselves of the results of the costly 
experimentation of many generations. 

The teacher in training finds in past failures, such as that of 
the monitorial-system experiment, in the wise counsels of such 



56 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

educators as Coraenius, in the examples of the vigorous person- 
ality of such leaders as Arnold, and of the self-sacrifice of such 
philanthropists as Pestalozzi, a safeguard against error, a guide 
to sound method and a stimulus to future endeavor. Further, 
a comparative study of educational systems, past and present, 
reveals an irreducible minimum of scientific, educational 
instrument which has stood the test of years of experience, 
which is in accord with the sanest educational theory, is 
almost universally agreed upon, and which, being accepted, 
leaves the student free for the investigation of other problems 
which demand attention. 

The space at my disposal does not admit of a detailed state- 
ment of the ways in which all the sulyects referred to in this 
chapter — ethics, sociology, etc. — contribute to educational 
science. For purposes of illustration, however, I shall select 
one of these subjects and shall devote the next chapter to an 
analysis — somewhat in detail but still necessarily very incom- 
plete — of ways in which psychology is of service to education. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTOR OP EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. 

Adopting the view that psychology enables us to " trace 
mental process " let us next proceed to a consideration of 
various modes in which, when viewed from the educational 
standpoint, psychology does this in such ways as to furnish 
assistance in the solution of educational problems.* 

It may be noted at the outset that if there were no develop- 
ment of mental process, and no related sequence in such 
development, there could be no education worthy of the name. 
The child furnishes the starting-point and the focus of educa- 
tional activity, while his capacity for improvement, and the 
length of time during which the learning activity may be 
continued, condition the entire process. 

As has been pointed out by Fiske, Harris and others, the 
possibility of education, and, therefore, of the advance of civi- 
lization, varies directly as the length of the period of infancy. 
In the lower animal born with fixed instincts there is but a 
brief period of advance. The child of the savage, and the 
gamin of the street, evince remarkable precocity along certain 
lines, but they mature at an early period and in later life 
suffer from the results of arrested development. On the bio- 
logical side it takes months or even years for man to form 
coordinations which in the case of lower forms of animal life 
are practically present at birth. Hence, with the child there 
is dependence upon society, calling forth such moral virtues 

* See Applied Psychology, McLellan. 

The Psychological Foundations of Education, Harris. 
Psychology in the Schoolroom, Dexter and Garlick. 

57 



58 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

as pity, sympathy and self-sacrifice. There is also an almost 
limitless capacity for progress in forming numerous and com- 
plex combinations of original activities. Further, there is 
with the child in civilized society a tendency to take on the 
attitude or spirit of his surroundings; e.g., the child who has 
been reared in a home of culture and intelligence speaks the 
language and in a great measure thinks the thoughts of those 
with whom he has come in contact. It is owing to these 
characteristics that education becomes possible and necessary. 
Through the last mentioned, viz., the capacity of adaptation 
to environment, society finds a key to the solution of the 
educational problem. 

I. The Stages of Mental Development.— Psychology furnishes 
a knowledge, more or less complete, of the stages of mental 
growth from infancy to adult life, and so provides a standard 
and criterion for discovering what subject-matter is necessary 
and appropriate to a given phase of development — necessary 
to answer to the hunger that is there, and appropriate to 
contribute to the possibilities of growth. 

The most casual observer of child nature has not failed 
to notice that while there is great diversity in development 
there are certain clearly-defined resemblances common to 
all; e.g., no one would suppose that a child three years of 
age could comprehend the calculus or fully appreciate the 
beauty and power of Raphael's " Transfiguration ;" nor would 
anyone expect to find marked difterences in the ability or 
temperament of the same child on two succeeding days. 
Shakespeare, whose insight into the working of the mind 
was so clear that he is said to have "dipped his pen in the 
human heart," has left us in his "Seven Ages of _ Man" 
a graphic and accurate description of the most prominent 
periods in the cycle of life. Professor Donaldson {Growth of 
Brain, p. 46) makes the following postnatal subdivision from 
the biological standpoint : " Infancy, the period of dependence 



The Psychological Factor of Educational Science. 59 

upon the mother (in medical jurisprudence extending to the 
time when the milk teeth begin to be shed) ; childhood, from 
the beginning of independence to the age of puberty ; youth, 
from puberty to the completion of the increase in both stature 
and weight ; maturity, from the completion of growth to the 
onset of uncompensated decay ; old age, from the beginning 
of uncompensated decay to death." 

The educative period is confined mainly to the first three of 
these divisions. School life presents two prominent budding 
periods or points of departure, viz., (1) the conclusion of later 
infancy, from the sixth to the seventh year, when the brain 
has attained almost its full weight, and (2) the conclusion of 
childhood and beginning of adolescence from the twelfth to 
the fourteenth year (earlier with girls than boys). 

Speaking generally, in earlier infancy the activity of 
the child is directed mainly to gaining a mastery of the 
fundamental bodily organs. In later infancy, during the 
kindergarten, symbolic or play period, he utilizes his sen- 
sation images as ordered cues or signals for motor expression 
in play in which the interest lies wholly within the activity 
itself. During the period of childhood the response to 
stimulus is postponed for some time and action begins to 
be controlled by the idea of a result or product, instead of 
following the interest of immediate expression in play. In 
the period of youth the mind takes on a more reflective or 
scientific attitude and there comes a more thoughtful adjust- 
ment to larger social relations of the individual.* 

II. The Unity of Individual Experience. — Psychological 
investigation of the educational process discovers not only 
that there is a regular succession of attitudes toward life 

* See Pedagogical Seminary, E. Stanley Hall. 
Psychology of Childhood (5th ed.), Tracy. 
Studies in Education, Earl Barnes. 
Mental Development in the Child, Preyer. 
Studies 0/ Childhood, Sully. 
Mental Development in the Child and the Race, Baldwin. 



60 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

and experience, which attitudes reveal themselves in the child 
at certain fairlj-well-defined periods, but also that there is 
an underlying unity which gives coherence and identity to all 
experience. 

At each stage we find an inseparable connection between 
mind and body. Every conscious experience exhibits a three- 
fold aspect — intellectual, emotional, volitional. The so-called 
faculties of perception, memory, imagination and thought are 
always implicitly or explicitly present and are successively 
emphasized in the natural ascent from sensuous to ideal. The 
extreme " dualistic," "tripartite," and "faculty" views of 
earlier times have been abandoned or greatly modified, and 
there is general unanimity in holding that from the functional 
standpoint the basic unit of mental action is found in the 
attentive act, and not in either a sensation or a thought. 

On the biological side, in lower forms of life, we find 
adaptation of the organization to its environment. Even 
here we do not have a completely static condition of organ- 
ism on one side and environment on the other. There is the 
functional life process. The plant does not take up all that it 
comes in contact with ; it assimilates that which is necessary 
for survival. This activity becomes more and more complex 
as we ascend the scale from lowest vegetable to highest animal 
life, and in man from infancy through the successive stages of 
mental development.* 

The individual is organized on a principle of well being. 
No matter how vigorous the personality or lofty the ideal in 
adult life, at the beginning the individual appears as a com- 
plex of instincts, impulses, feelings, hereditary powers. It 
must not be forgotten, however, that these early elements are 
teleological in character. 

Human consciousness at this stage is not, as Locke supposed, 
a tabula rasa to be written upon by sensations. Nor is it a 

* See The Psychological Foundations of Education, Harris, pp. 23-37. 



The Psycliological Factor of Educational Science. 61 

dormant potentiality, which must be goaded into activity. 
The native impulses and instincts of the child are their own 
alarm-signal. There is a natural hunger of the soul to receive 
sensations, an impulse to observe and to express ; in other 
words, to develop through activity. The tendency of the 
individual is essentially progressive. Without this impulse- 
activity there could be no growth and no education. These 
instinctive tendencies manifest themselves in movements, and 
as a result the child has experiences of contact with his 
environment, and certain sensations and impressions are 
formed. At the beginning of infancy these movements are 
apparently purely reflex. The eye follows the light and the 
hand feels the object because of a hunger for light and touch 
sensations. 

Nor are these reflexes in organic connection. The eye 
reacts to light and the ear to sound, but eye and ear have no 
connection. At the end of about the third month the nerves 
connecting brain-centers take on the medullary sheath and 
the child begins to be able to make coordinations between 
different senses. When he sees a light he reaches for it ; 
when he hears a sound he turns his head, and so on. He 
thus begins in a crude way to form images or adaptations 
of previous habit to the building up of new experience. 

Let us consider the familiar example of a little child 
learning to make the eye-hand coordination, who while 
looking at, and fumbling with, a watch happens to press 
upon the spring and the cover opens. If someone closes 
the cover the child has a vague, remembered, visual image 
of the watch as open, and a kinoesthetic impi-ession or image 
of the feeling of the muscles of the arm in pressing the 
spring. * 

Now, it is a tendency of any image, no matter how crude, 
to express itself again in some way or other. The sight of the 

* See Biography of a Baby, Miss Shinns, p. 141. 

Principles of PnychoCogy, James, Vol. II, p. 488. 



62 Tlie Possibility of a Science of Education. 

closed watch calls up the image of the open watch and of a 
pleasurable feeling which it is desii-ed to have again. This 
visual image reacts upon the tactual, and the motor activity 
is repeated. There is a feeling of the watcli somewhat similar 
to that of the first fumbling activity, but the attitude is 
changed, the activity is no longer purely aimless ; there is a 
conscious purpose in view, viz., to reconstruct present experi- 
ence by changing the form of stimuli received from the watch. 
If the cover again responds by opening, the activity is 
repeated. Thus the eye and the hand continue to reinforce 
each other and a habit of coordination is formed. 

Now, in this simple beginning we have in vague and 
implicit form the elements of the most profound and far- 
reaching experience of which the human being is capable. 

1st. There is a unity of personal experience to be realized. 
It is the child's own experience, a step in the life process. 

2nd. There is a problem, a breakdown of habitual experi- 
ence ; the first fumbling activity may scarcely have arisen 
into consciousness except as by pleasant, emotional tone 
accompaniment ; but now there is a new coordination. In 
this case the conscious realization of the process is extremely 
vague and indistinct. Still there is a problem. The situation 
is one of a watch to be opened. 

3rd. There is the modification of past experience so as to 
transform it into images of the end which is to be reached 
and of the means for reaching the end. It is a situation not 
only of a watch to be opened, but to be opened through the 
agency of a coordination of hand-and-eye activity. As 
Professor James says, " In one sense there can be no volun- 
tary activity which has not first been involuntary : " on the 
first occasion that the hand and eye having united in a move- 
ment the result was no longer an eye movement, nor a hand 
movement, but a third movement — a hand-eye movement 
which was distinctly different fi'om either of the others or 



The Psychological Factor of Educational Science. 63 

from a fusion of the two. In the earlier simple reflex to light 
there was a movement of the entire organism, even involving 
sympathy of the circulatory activity, but the emphasis was 
upon the visual phase. Now, in the eye-hand movement there 
is not a divided activity, partly eye and partly hand, but an 
undifferentiated unity of experiences, an activity, a tension 
between the sensational focus of present experience and the 
future image to which the experience tends in its forward 
movement. 

4th. There is the selection, the development and adjustment 
of means and ends leading to a new position, and actual 
experiencing on the part of the child. There is the reaction of 
the habitual kinoesthetic image which furnishes a cue to the 
adjustment of hand and eye so as to open the watch. After 
sufficient repetition the activity becomes comparatively reflex, 
after which time, if continued at all, it is for the feeling of 
satisfaction furnished by the activity itself. 

Now, a comparison will show that in the classification of a 
school pupil, considered in Chapter III, we had in the recon- 
structive process a series of stages corresponding to those in 
the case just considered. According to this view the later 
stages do not differ from the earlier so much in the quality as 
in the complexity of the experience which reveals itself in the 
successive stages previously referred to; e.g., in the period of 
later infancy the characteristic unity may be said to be the 
story ; the present, direct response. In the period of childhood 
it is found in serial order, a relation of means and ends, a 
history or a scheme, which toward the latter part of the 
period throws the emphasis on skill as the attitude becomes 
increasingly mediated and indirect. In the youth period 
the unity may be said to be law, abstraction, generalization ; 
there is a tendency to seek truth for its own sake, to probe 
into the hidden meaning of things, to develop technique in 
a scientific way, and the activity becomes more and more 
reflective. 



64 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

According to the theory of the unity of the thought process 
previously referred to everything depends upon, and is related 
to, everything else. Voluntary attention differs from involun- 
tary in the complexity of the operation. Perception, memory, 
etc., are stages of development. The individual is not a passive 
recipient of sensations such that when acted upon by a stimulus 
he responds with a movement. There is a fixation of the eye 
for the reception of light. There is more than simple adjust- 
ment ; there is a selective and relating activity. The individual 
is self-active, purposive, selective, lying in wait for, and reaching 
out after, the right kind of stimulus — that best adapted to his 
needs. Thus the mechanism of sense perception is not a sensori- 
motor arc but a sensori-motor circle in which the stimulus to be 
responded to locates the point of greatest stress or tension.* 

Memory is not a bringing back to consciousness of an image 
previously stowed away like a photograph in an album. It is 
a genuine reproduction. An image is not a photograph or a 
kaleidoscopic reconstruction of elementary photographs. It is 
the adaptation of a former habit to the building up of a new 
habit which it is desired to have, and images are not confined 
to the visual type alone but may be visual, auditory, motor, 
tactual, etc. 

This theory exalts initiative to the highest place and makes 
self-activity the keynote of all progress and, therefore, of all 
education. Will is the entire personality arresting the move- 
ment to see what ought to be done and then moving forward 
to the attainment of the desired end. According to this view 
every act, no matter how commonplace, has an ethical bearing. 
This ethical phase finds its fullest development in religious 
experience where in the interaction of divine and human love 
we reach the most perfect reconstruction through the identi- 
fication of the imperfect self with God — the completely-realized 
personality. 

*See article on "The Reflex Arc Concept," by Professor Dewey, Psychological 
Review, 1896, p. 367. 



The Psychological Factor of Educational Science. 65 



Such a conception of the thought process when applied in 
education gives a practical and rational solution to many 
problems. A proper training of one factor means a training 
for all the others ; e.g., a correct method of acquisition of 
knowledge will at the same time afford volitional and emo- 
tional training. When the principle is properly applied in 
teaching, development is not arrested by remaining too long 
upon the lower plane nor by proceeding to the higher plane 
too soon. The theory holds that the best progress is made 
when the learner is upon the line dividing the known from 
the related unknown (if I may use such an expression). 
There can be no thought properly so called unless there is 
a problem involving a breakdown in experience and also a 
power of reconstruction. The stage of advance reached by 
the learner affords the key to the adaptation of the presenta- 
tion of the material to his capacity in such a way as to produce 
the most satisfactory results. 

III. The Genesis of Habit.— There are certain habits which 
we wish the child to form — habits of memory, jud^^ment 
thought, appreciation, morals, etc. Psychology shows how 
the raw material of sensation, interest and impulse is worked 
into higher forms. It gives an insight into the mechanism 
involved in the formation and exercise of habits. The pur- 
pose, however, is not to develop mechanical habit regardless of 
the conscious activity of the learner. The main thin» is the 
interaction of consciousness — intellectual, emotional, and voli- 
tional — on the part of the child. There must be the formation 
of definite habits, but not as ends in themselves, not as copies 
of what other people have learned to do. The purpose is to 

bring the child to a realization of the meaning of the thing 

the desirability of a certain course of action — and then to 
control his habits in virtue of this realization. Nor is the 
training to be considered an external end in itself. 

There is no true method except in relation to the subject- 
matter. If psychology is to be of service in education it 



66 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

is not to be in formulating a species of mental gymnastics 
by which one is to develop certain phrenological bumps or to 
train certain assumed, empty, isolated powers of observation, 
memory, etc., according to the view of the old "faculty" 
psychology. 

Any real training of mental power — e.g., memory — is the 
training of capacity to be interested in, and to appropriate, 
certain kinds of facts, and to ignore and forget others. It is 
training to a right attitude toward the world of truth. The 
faculty of remembering is simply a power or habit of remem- 
bering and goes back to an adaptation of certain original 
instinctive abilities. The teacher's duty is to assist in the 
selection of the best material, and in its translation into the 
child mind so as to bring about such an attitude, i.e., to 
enable the learner so to direct and control Jiis activity as to 
appropriate proper material in the quickest and most thorough- 
going manner. 

IV. The Sequence of Subject-Matter.— If we take any depart- 
ment of knowledge, e.g., mathematics, and study its origin, 
history, and present content, we shall find that there was a 
reason for its origin and that there has been a method in its 
development. There is a sequence by which each point follows 
in regular order and grows out of the previous one. This is 
perhaps clearer in mathematics than in any other department, 
but the more one looks into any subject the more one sees an 
underlying principle running through it all. This accounts 
for the clearness of exposition of the person who has mastered 
a subject from every standpoint as compared with one who has 
only a smattering or superficial view. The chronological order 
of development may not always correspond with the logical 
order, but there is an order which is best adapted -to the 
learning mind. 

Again, certain subjects are best fitted for producing certain 
mental attitudes — e.g., it has been truly said that mathemati- 



The Psychological Factor of Educational Science. 67 

cal study is the logic of the elementary school — so that in fixing 
educational values we must know something of the effect of 
particular forms of study in the development of special habits 
of mind. In determining, therefore, the kind of material fitted 
for a certain stage of life advancement, and the ways in which 
that material should be presented in order to reach the aim in 
view, it is necessary to study the subject itself in relation to 
mental development. It is one thing to possess an examination 
knowledge of a subject and quite another thing to be able to 
teach it properly. To accomplish the latter it is necessary to 
sit down and consider the subject from a new standpoint 
altogether — to ask oneself, " Why do I teach this subject and 
how can it best be presented ? " In other words, the subject 
must be "psychologized." An example of this form of treat- 
ment is shown in The Psychology of Number, by Dewey and 
McLellan. Psychology may not be able to say with absolute 
accuracy that a definite kind of material should be given at a 
definite moment and that it should be presented in a definite 
way, but it affords the truest available guide to such selection 
and method. 

V. The Conditions most Conducive to Educational Activity. 
— The advance made by the learner is seriously affected in an 
indirect way by conditions outside the actual subject to be 
learned and the direct method of its presentation. 

The questions of proper physical, physiological and hygienic 
conditions, of nutrition, clothing, temperature, light, seating, 
schoolroom apparatus and decorations, exercise, fatigue, com- 
panions, school regulations, discipline, etc., are of vital impor- 
tance in education. The treatment of such questions belongs 
to many different departments of study — medicine, architec- 
ture, etc. ; but into all such considerations, psychology — more 
particularly physiological psychology — enters as a factor to 
show the intimate relation of the physical and the psychical, 
and thus to determine the conditions best suited to highest 
function. 



68 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

VI. Application of the Foregoing Psychological Results to— 

1st, The Selection and Arra)igement of Subject-Matter. — Those 
who, without adequate preliminary investigation, outline 
courses of study are apt to commit many serious errors. 

(a) They take no pains to discover what knowledge is of 
most worth. Having never considered the aims or means of 
education they have no criterion of judgment. They, there- 
fore, select material at random and as a result much time 
spent in the schools is worse than wasted whether the results 
be viewed from the standpoint of utility, or of discipline. 

(6) They forget the individual to be educated. They con- 
clude to send the child to school a certain number of years. 
They divide the material to be studied into a corresponding 
number of equal parts ; e.g., addition is to be taught during 
the first year, subtraction the second, and so on. As someone 
has humorously pointed out, it seems to them that the creation 
of a continent for each school year was a providential arrange- 
ment specially designed for geography teaching. They look 
upon the child as a passive recipient into which knowledge 
can be poured in a mechanical and unrelated fashion. With 
them he is the best teacher who can keep the largest number 
of pupils perfectly still through the greatest number of hours 
per year and who can secure the highest marks for pupils 
on a final rote memory examination. Such a conception of 
education ignores the facts that the individual is a personality, 
a self-active, living organism, that every stage of life is 
important in itself, and that attitude toward truth is more 
important than the possession of unassimilated knowledge. 
This information view submerges discipline, and, on the 
knowledge side, forgets that not all material is suited to the 
organs of prehension and digestion of the individual learner 
at a particular stage of his development. 

Fortunately, or unfortunately, human nature usually rebels 
against a load of indigestible material forced upon it from with- 



The Psychological Factor of Educational Science. 69 

out. The history of education furnishes countless examples 
of such rebellion and of methods for its suppression. By many, 
corporal punishment was adopted as the device to overcome 
the difficulty, and the enforcement of the motto of the Hoozier 
schoolmaster pioneer, " Lickin and larnin, larnin and lickin ; 
no lickin, no larnin," has been considered as the only practical 
solution to the problem. In fact, there are still many who 
preach an educational gospel which in the ultimate analysis 
means a return to the " rod " as the panacea for all ills. On 
the other hand, there are those who by amusing devices 
propose to sugarcoat the pill until the pupil swallows it, and 
it has been found that by such a method the pupil by and 
by forms a habit of taking anything set before him, without 
complaint. 

Many of the devices proposed for making subjects "inter- 
esting" are artificial means of bridging over a gulf which 
exists between the child mind and the subject to be studied, 
a gulf which is seldom found when the material is properly 
selected and presented. 

The result of creating false tastes and of yielding to every 
capricious whim of the child — of making everything so easy 
that there is no obstacle — is to produce an effeminate and 
priggish superficiality ; and with such residts so much in 
evidence it is not surprising that there should be a reaction 
against methods which make everything easy and interesting. 

Now, as there has been greater diversity of opinion regard- 
ing the signification of the word " interest " than of any 
other word in the vocabulary of education, it may not be out 
of place to turn aside for a moment to point out several mis- 
conceptions. The claim that the material should be suited to 
the stage of development of the pupil does not imply the 
removal of all obstacles, but merely the unnecessary ones. 
The material will still present obstacles ; if it did not it would 
be devoid not only of interest but also of educational value. 



70 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

Anyone who has observed a game of rugby football should 
have no difficulty in realizing that an activity may be most 
strenuous and at the same time most fascinating. 

As we have seen, unless there is a problem there can be no 
thought activity properly so called. The great law of interest 
is to regulate the tension between the known and the unknown 
in such a way that the exercise will not be too easy and yet 
not so difficult as to induce discouragement. All achievement 
worthy of attention is full of difficulty and any proper line 
of educational work will present sufficient obstacles without 
creating new ones. The whole question of interest reverts to 
habit and attention. If the material is so selected and pre- 
sented that the child has a desire to do something that is 
really worth while, and realizes that the difficulty has a 
genuine relation to what he is doing, and that by overcoming 
it he will be nearer the accomplishment of his purpose, he 
becomes interested in the activity. He realizes that it is a 
something which is to be attended to in order to reach his 
aim, and he experiences a pleasure from each successful 
achievement which spurs him on to future endeavor. 

The teacher's problem is, then, not to find what is interest- 
ing, nor to make things interesting, nor to remove all obstacles, 
but to bring the child into a sphere of objects and relations 
which are most worthy of his attention at this stage, and then 
to bring him to a consciousness of the meaning of the thing 
and to direct his activity upon the point of greatest difficulty 
so that he will not only overcome obstacles but form a habit 
of looking for and overcoming them. 

To return to the former discussion, the advocates of the 
pouring-in process fail to realize that the little residuiim of 
knowledge which remains (for most of it is quickly forgotten) 
is comparatively worthless. In order that the presented 
material become of service to the learner it is necessary that 
the mind reach out and lay hold of the material and work it 



I'he Psychological Factor of Educational Science. 71 

over into a vital part of its own experience, a helpful part of 
its powers of action. 

The material to be learned is not something which hangs 
in the air statically. It exists in the consciousness of other 
people. Certain experiences have been gone through and cer- 
tain facts formulated and systematized. This material must 
be detached from its native setting and translated into the 
consciousness of the learner. It must not be put into him ; 
he must put himself into it, and the teacher's business is to 
show him how to do that. 

Let us cite an example from the teaching of geography, a 
subject in which the pouring-in process has been adopted with 
but little adverse criticism. Some thirty years ago a certain 
pupil during his first year of geography study spent a number 
of weeks in drilling upon the names of the productions of the 
respective states of the American union. The lists were com- 
mitted by a pure effort of verbal memory. No attempt was 
made to show why the material should be learned or to relate 
it to climate, relief, or any other fact-producing principle. No 
problems of any kind were presented for solution. The result 
is that although at that time he could recite them all with 
ease he now remembers the productions of only one state, and 
as, owing to various causes, the products of this state have 
changed the remembered list is incorrect. 

Now, it cannot be said that in the case quoted the failure 
was due to lack of knowledge or of aptitude on the part of the 
teacher, for she possessed both in unusual degree, nor can it be 
asserted that she had suffered from pedagogical training, for 
she had never received any. She also possessed a free hand 
as regarded selection of material to be taught. She simply 
followed a method which still dominates much of geography 
teaching. 

There are many classes who experience a shock if the map is 
hung with the so-called "south-side" nearest the ceiling. They 



72 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

have the feeling that the map is an end in itself, a something 
which is studied on its own account. The idea of actually 
relating it to experience outside the school has never entered 
their minds. 

Geographical study may consist simply in committing by 
rote certain definitions and lists of names of places without 
discrimination or purpose, just as one might learn the epitaphs 
and names of unknown persons from the tombstones in a 
cemetery. 

To the properly-educated man geographical knowledge is 
not, as in the case alluded to, a dead weight of unrelated and 
unassimilated information. It is an attitude of mind which 
gives meaning to things. The simplest object of field or 
forest possesses value, not so much for what it is in itself as 
for what it represents. The map serves as an instrument 
with the aid of which the imagination constructs the actual 
scene and views it in proper perspective. A knowledge of 
present conditions is sufficient to enable such a one to antici- 
pate erosion and upheaval, the building of cities, and the 
growth of nations. Such an attitude can be gained only by a 
proper adaptation of material to the conditions of the learner. 

(c) Those who prescribe courses of study may fall into the 
opposite error and make the child the be-all and end-all of 
education, ignoring external factors. Now, the subject-matter 
of education has been obtained from the general world of 
experience, history, nature — sources entirely independent 
of the child. It has been' pointed out that the purpose of 
education is to socialize the child, to enable him to gain a 
power of interpreting his experience through the resources 
that have been worked out and which have been inherent in 
the continued process of civilization. Evidently if the learner 
is to overtake in a few years what it has taken centuries to 
accomplish there must be some way of improving upon the 
original method of acquisition. Society furnishes the teacher 
for the purpose of facilitating this process. 



The Psychological Factor of Educational Science. 73 

The extreme advocates of the "development" theory have 
forgotten that one of the fundamental principles which render 
education necessary is that the material (dynamically con- 
sidered) is not within the child and that it is desirable that 
he shall be put in possession of it. The extreme advocates 
of the " nature " theory have forgotten another fundamental 
principle, which is that it is necessary to "short-circuit" the 
process extending over thousands of years so as, if possible, to 
gain its best results in the relatively brief period of, say, 
twenty-one years preceding adult life. 

Perhaps suflB.cient has been said in the early part of this 
chapter to show how by the study of stages of development 
and materials fitted to these stages the teacher may be aided 
in avoiding errors and making a proper choice of subject and 
sequence. 

The courses of study outlined by Froebel for the kinder- 
garten, by the Committees of Ten and Fifteen for elementary 
and secondary schools, by Dr. Dewey in Society and School, 
and by Dr. Harris in The Psychological Foundations of 
Education, furnish prominent examples of efforts which have 
been made to effect a classification of material for a particular 
period with due regards to the needs of the individual and 
of society. 

2nd. Methods of Teaching. — In the reconstruction of the 
learner's experience the teacher endeavors to facilitate the 
translation of the richer content of the social consciousness 
into the crude consciousness of the learner; e.g., suppose a 
child has reached a point where he is ready to learn how to 
multiply decimals. Now, the something which the child is to 
gain does not exist in the book. The book statement is 
an abstraction of it. The teacher's conscious experience of 
multiplication of decimals is an ability to adapt previous 
habits to the building up of a new experience, a bridge from 
one experience to another, a device for facilitating and enrich- 



74 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

ing conduct. As a result of this power the teacher can solve 
problems and thus reach ends which the pupil cannot reach. 
It is this kind of instrument which the child is to gain 
possession of. 

As has been pointed out it is one thing to know the facts of 
a subject and quite another to be able to teach the subject well. 
This is especially evident in elementary work. To the teacher 
preparing an introductory lesson on multiplication of decimals 
such questions as the following demand consideration: — What 
new material is to be presented? What representative material 
shall be used in interpretation 1 How shall the former experi- 
ence be brought to bear upon the new presentation? Is it well 
to begin by facing the pupil with a difficult, practical life prob- 
lem, involving multiplication of decimals, and to allow him to 
flounder a little before offering him further suggestions? Should 
he discover the method for himself? To what extent should the 
teacher suggest ? Should the pupil make the discovery through 
the adaptation of his previous habit of multiplication of frac- 
tions or would it be better for him to adapt his knowledge of 
simple multiplication and notation of decimals without any 
direct reference to fractions ? Would it be wise to begin with 
the multiplication of a decimal by a whole number of one digit 
and then to proceed by increasingly-difficult steps ? etc. 

Now, such questions as the foregoing arise in every lesson 
no matter what the subject may be, and they can be properly 
answered only after a careful study of the relations existing 
between the learner and the material to be learned. 

An examination of the work done by the best teachers — 
those who have and those who have not received professional 
training — shows that, consciously or unconsciously, they strive 
to answer satisfactorily these questions by adapting the subject 
to the requirements of the learning mind. Further, there is 
universal agreement that certain methods are preferable to 
certain others ; e.g., thirty years ago the student, in learning 



The Psychological Factor of Educational Scieiice. 75 

the preposition in English grammar, was asked to memorize a 
list of prepositions — " about, above," etc. — and when in parsing 
he came to a word mentioned in the list he was expected to 
parse it as a preposition because it was included in the list 
learned. 

The student now approaches the subject from an entirely 
different standpoint — that of the function or force of the word 
in the sentence. In this way he quickly gains an insight, by 
which he can independently make as satisfactory a list of 
prepositions as that which pupils were formerly asked to 
memorize, and, further, he understands why the possession of 
such a list is entirely inadequate. 

It will be generally conceded that the statement that the 
latter method of teaching the preposition is superior to the 
former method is as true as the statement that " similar 
triangles are to one another in the duplicate ratio of their 
homologous sides." And yet notwithstanding all this there 
are many good teachers who are vigorously opposed to all 
study of method. It is urged that the student-teacher blindly 
copies the method taught, that the model presented may not 
be the best, that the method may be unsound, and that the 
copy is always inferior to the original. Further, it is claimed 
that an effort to arrive at method in a scientific way is from 
the nature of the case doomed to failure. 

Now, an analysis of these objections will show that they 
arise either as an adverse criticism of the abuse of method, or 
from a static view of education. 

In the first place, every teacher must adopt some method. 
It is perhaps not surprising that one who has heard "method" 
exalted out of all due proportion, or seen devices for creating 
a false appetite or unnatural interest, should go to the opposite 
extreme and say, " I do not believe in method ; I try to have 
none." And yet anyone who teaches must teach in some way 
and a description of what is done would be a description of 
the method used. 



76 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

The teacher who teaches multiplication of decimals by 
having pupils simply learn the rule and apply it to the prob- 
lem may consider the preparation of the lesson and study of 
mental processes entirely unnecessary, but still he has a 
method. Further, he is likely to defend his method with 
the argument that " it is better not to waste time in trying 
to explain such rules to young children, but to teach them 
the facts, and by and by they will understand the reasons." 
This argument, it will be observed, is an appeal to mental 
process as the final criterion. There is merely a difference of 
opinion as to what the actual psychological facts are. 

In the next place, the " blind imitation " of a model by the 
pupil in ordinary school work, or by the student-teacher in 
learning how to teach, is entirely opposed to the dynamic 
conception of education previously referred to. The ultimate 
test of any method in any subject is. Does it in the best way 
enable the child to translate the social material into his own 
consciousness so that it becomes part and parcel of himself, 
an instrument for future control ? If the saying " as the 
teacher so the school " means that the child imitates the 
teacher in a blind way, always following where the teacher 
leads and learning nothing but what the teacher tells him, 
the result is most disastrous. As an example of the results 
of such imitation consider the case of an adult who goes to 
a large city for the first time, and has a friend who takes 
complete charge of him and acts as guide on all occasions 
without explanation. If the newcomer submits passively and 
unobservingly to these conditions he may find the experience 
very restful, but the longer he follows this course the more 
completely " at sea " he will be when left to himself. It is 
a matter of everyday experience that by such a method a 
person often becomes "turned" as regards direction — so that, 
e.g., west appears south — and is never again able to orientate 
himself properly, no matter how faithfully and continuously 
he may strive to do so. 



The Psychological Factor of Educational Science. 11 

Imitation is a valuable factor in education, but not when it 
limits individual spontaneity and consists simply in copying an 
external model ; e.g., a child learns to swim more easily if he 
sees others swimming, and has a model to imitate, than if left 
entirely to himself, but the impulse to swim is not dependent 
upon any external model. By devoting sufficient time to it a 
child under favorable conditions will learn to swim without 
any model or instructions. The advantage of the model is 
that it enables the learner to eliminate a number of the 
elements or factors of purely individual experimentation. 
By judicious imitation he saves time, gets quickly to the 
coordination, and omits the intermediate guesses, and, as we 
have seen, this is a point in which true education improves 
upon the process of " nature." Such imitation does not simply 
furnish external models for the child. What it does is to 
furnish only those which fall in line with his own natural 
tendencies, in order to save the waste of too-long-continued 
experimentation and to guard against the formation of 
incorrect habits. 

Similarly, such "method" can itself become an instrument 
for the teacher only when he has reflected upon the subject in 
its logical relations and upon the manner in which it is assimi- 
lated by the mind in relation to other studies so as to become 
a factor of control. This means that the subject must be 
studied from the logical and psychological standpoints, in 
ways indicated in the earlier part of this chapter. 

In addition to methods of teaching which have been 
developed theoretically along the lines just referred to there 
is a body of empirical metljod which the history of education 
shows to have been worked out in a practical way and to have 
stood the test of experience. The value of such methods to 
check up and accentuate the more abstract theoretical formu- 
lation is considerable and the science of education can scarcely 
afford to discountenance all that has not been discovered by 



78 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

laboratory methods. Everything which in any way contributes 
to educational facilitation is of value and properly belongs to 
the theor}^ of educational science. 

To recapitulate, it has been thoroughly established that the 
mind does not work in a haphazard fashion but that there is 
continuity and relation throughout the entire life process, that 
there are certain characteristics of successive stages of develop- 
ment common to all children, and that it is possible to present 
stimulus in such a way as to direct the learning activity by 
means of external influence. Furthei', all these phases admit 
of investigation and can be sufficiently understood to render it 
possible to determine with a considerable degree of accuracy 
what kind of stimulus should be furnished at a definite time 
and the best method of presenting it and of directing the 
learning activity. It, therefore, follows that much can be 
learned concerning the best methods of teaching and that no 
lesson can be properly taught without careful preparation on 
the part of the teacher both as regards matter and method. 

3rd. External Conditions of Study. — In no other phase of 
school life in America has the improvement been so marked 
during the past few years as in the environment of the 
child during school hours. As indicated on p. 67, these 
changes have been due to a study of the needs of the child 
and also of the various departments of knowledge — such as 
school architecture — which relate to the different forms of 
requirement. 

Illustrations.— The following are submitted as illustrations of 
ways in which such training as that to which I have referred 
may prove of actual service in the schoolroom. The first deals 
with a physiological, the second with an ethical, and the third 
with an intellectual phase of school experience : 

1. Treatment of Myopia. — A gentleman who is a well- 
known authority in a science department of university work 
has been kind enough to allow me to make use of the 
following statement : 



The Psychological Factor of Educational Science. 79 

"From earliest childhood I was very nearsighted, but I was nineteen 
years of age before any person mentioned the subject to me or 
suggested that I should get glasses. During these years I had at 
least a dozen different teachers and was personally acquainted with a 
number of physicians who were friends of our family. 

"At school, in the seating of pupils, no attention was paid to visual 
or auditory defects, and the result was that I was usually placed in a 
part of the room where I could read little or nothing of what was 
written upon the blackboard. When the teacher wrote problems upon 
the board and repeated them orally I tried to remember what was 
said, but when they were written without reading or explanation I 
was quite at sea. However, I succeeded in making a good showing 
in my studies, and this probably was one reason why the defect of 
eyesight was unnoticed. 

"I fared even worse on the playground. I could not hit or catch 
the ball, being unable to see it in time. I was often hurt and being 
considered clumsy was not chosen in a game when other material was 
available. The result was that finally I was simply debarred from all 
sports. I got credit for being dreamy and for not observing closely. 
It was a common occurrence for a friend to remark, ' I guess you must 
have been dreaming again to-day. I passed close to you on the street 
and you looked at me and passed right on.' I would answer, ' Whj', 
I don't remember meeting you !' 

"Apparently by the merest chance, one day when I was groping 
about for something a friend said, ' You are nearsighted ; you ought 
to get glasses.' This was, as I have said, when I was nineteen years of 
age. 

" I consulted an oculist and after he had examined my eyes asked 
him if he thought I needed glasses. He laughed and said, 'I was 
wondering if you didn't need a little dog and a string to lead you 
around. ' 

"My glasses were a complete revelation to me; they opened up an 
unseen world and for days I had difficulty in adjusting my sensori- 
motor mechanism to the changed conditions." 

Now, it is probable that upon reading the foregoing state- 
ment any teacher of the "dozen" referred to would admit 
that the oversight vras a serious one, and would be surprised 
that anyone could have failed to notice the abnormality. The 
facts, however, that statistics show that such cases of defective 
eyesight are much more common than is iisually supposed, that 



80 The Possibility of a Science of Ediication. 

the tendency of most school conditions is to increase the diflB- 
culty,* and, further, that without previous training the defect 
is almost invariably ignored by the teacher, should be suffi- 
cient reason for adopting some other method than that of 
trusting to the teacher's unaided intuitions. 

In a properly-conducted training course such a difficulty is 
anticipated, and the methods of overcoming it investigated in 
such a way as to render a subsequent error, of the nature of 
that in the example quoted, practically impossible. 

One of the earliest facts learned in psychological study is 
that there can be no knowledge without a basis in sense 
presentation. In an investigation of correct and incorrect 
applications (on the sensory and motor sides) of this and 
related principles the fact is emphasized that there must be 
sense presentation at every stage of mental development and 
more particularly in elementary work. Such discussion opens 
up the consideration of a wide range of schoolroom subjects. 
One of these is the utilization of the school blackboard. It is 
found that to secure the best results it is necessary that the 
blackboard be brought into frequent requisition and that what 
is written upon it be seen by every pupil. An analysis of the 
visual process reveals the fact that there are many ways in 
which this desired result may be prevented ; e.g., if the black- 
board is defective, if the word is improperly written, if the 
lighting is imperfect, if the teacher stands between the pupil 
and the written word, if the eye does not function properly, if 
the optic nerve or cerebral centers are diseased, if the mind is 
intent upon something else — in none of these cases will a 
proper perception be made. 

In the investigation of that particular phase of interference 
presented by defects of the eye it is found that myopia is by 
far the most frequent and important source of trouble. ' Thus 
by a definite process of analysis the student is brought face to 

*See Nature Forschung und Schule, Preyer, 1887. 



I'he Psychological Factor of Educational Science. 81 

face with the problem which had been overlooked by the 
teachers in the illustration given. 

In the investigation of this problem the teacher in training 
studies the anatomy and physiology of the eye in considerable 
detail by dissection and from model. He reads widely on the 
subject so as not only to understand the conditions but also to 
understand them in their i-elation to classroom work. The 
latter point is worthy of emphasis. The physicians who were 
acquainted with the boy in the case described above were no 
doubt quite familiar with the technical details of myopia and 
they had, in all probability, never considered the subject from 
the educational standpoint. 

The student-teacher investigates methods of diagnosis and 
treatment. There are numerous ways of detecting myopia. 
Pupils who are shortsighted may be asked to report privately. 
The teacher may notice that a pupil is straining his eyes, that 
he holds the book close to his face in reading, etc. It is better 
at the beginning of the term, in all cases, before seating a class, 
to have a visual and auditory test. A skillful teacher will, 
without any special apparatus, make such a test in a few 
minutes by easily-available devices, such as writing small 
letters or speaking in a low tone. Instead of seating pupils 
alphabetically, as is often done, the trained teacher seats them 
in such a way that they will be able to accomplish the best 
results. Fxirther, it is often wise for the teacher to suggest 
to parents the advisability of consulting an oculist and secur- 
ing proper glasses. The idea, so often proclaimed, that parents 
are inclined to resent such an act as an unwarrantable inter- 
ference is, so far as my experience goes, purely mythical. 
Parents are usually eager to cooperate with the teacher in 
securing what is best for their children. 
Now, a teacher who has been trained along the lines indicated 

— and teachers are so trained in every good training-school 

has formed a habit of dealing with such problems, is always on 



82 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

the alert for such obstacles, and as a result would have detected 
the defect in the example quoted. I think it will be generally 
admitted that a teacher who had received such training and 
who still neglected to apply it should not be allowed to teach, 
and also that there is some excuse for those who have investi- 
gated such subjects carefully, and know how easily the wrong 
may be righted, when they protest somewhat too vigorously 
against what seems to them to be little less than criminal 
negligence. 

2. Treatment of a Case of Truancy. — A boy was brought by 
the truant officer to the private room of the principal of a 
city school. He was reported as an inveterate truant, idle, 
but not vicious. On the last occasion he had succeeded in 
playing truant for over a week without detection. He had 
the down glance and uncouth appearance characteristic of 
the boy who has come to the borderland of tramp life. 

At first he was reticent and sullen, but upon being con- 
vinced that the conversation was confidential, that the purpose 
was to try to get at and understand the situation, that the 
school principal was really interested and sympathetic, and 
that from the conditions of the case he must do the talking 
himself if anything was to come out of the interview, he 
slowly changed his attitude and finally talked quite freely. 

He said he hated to go to school. The other scholars in 
the class were younger and smaller than he, and he couldn't 
learn, fast. Some years ago a large boy had coaxed him to 
play truant and he had played off and on ever since, some- 
times with other boys but recently mostly by himself. When 
he played truant he didn't think about anything in particular. 
He just watched the birds and things. Sometimes he went 
in swimming. He was fourteen years old. He supposed if 
he hadn't played truant he might have been promoted' to a 
higher class, but didn't see much use in it anyway. He 
didn't know what it was to be a citizen, or to have a vote. 



The Psychological Factor of Educational Science. 83 

He knew who the mayor of the city was. He was at the 
torchlight procession when the mayor was inaugurated. He 
hadn't thought anything about what he would be when he 
became a man. The difference between twenty-one and 
fourteen was seven years. He could remember seven years 
back and that didn't seem very far to look forward to. He 
supposed he would have to do something when he grew up. 
No one had ever asked him what he intended to do and he 
hadn't thought about it at all. His mother was dead. His 
father was a tailor; he didn't think he would like to be a 
tailor. Finally, he said he would be willing to go down to 
his classroom that day and come up the next morning and 
tell the principal what he had rather be when he grew up. 
He went to the classroom, was as idle as usual, but seemed 
more thoughtful. On the following morning he was waiting 
at the office when the principal arrived and imparted the 
information that he had made up his mind that he wanted to 
be a motorman on a street car. He expressed his willingness 
to go to the classroom and consider the ways in which school 
work might help to make him an efficient motorman, and 
report the following morning. During the day he seemed more 
interested in the work and his attitude had certainly changed 
for the better. The following morning he surprised the princi- 
pal with the remark that he had concluded that he didn't 
want to be a motorman ; he wanted to be a conductor, and 
assigned some reasons for the change of opinion. He was 
asked to report the following morning on the previous prob- 
lem applied to the new conditions. He did so and furnished 
from memory an extended list of ways in which school study 
would fit him for the position of conductor. The first was 
that he would know how to make change, and the last that he 
would know how to be polite to ladies and gentlemen. He 
said he was willing to try to prepare himself to be a street-car 
conductor and believed he could keep from playing truant for 
a month. He undertook to make good his inference, and 



84 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 



with the help of a judicious and sympathetic class teacher he 
speedily effected a reform. The school conditions were much 
the same as before, but he had found himself, he had become 
properly orientated, and the work was interesting because it 
was work to be attended to. During the next six months he 
never played truant and at the conclusion of the term stood 
well up on the promotion list. After that there was no 
difficulty. 

I hope this example will not 'appear trivial. I have men- 
tioned the details of the experience Just as they occurred, 
because it is typical of a large number of cases which arise in 
every elementary school. The treatment may not have been 
the ideal one, and would certainly not apply to all cases, but 
in so far as it was successful the satisfactory results were due 
largely to an application of certain principles with which one 
should be familiar before taking charge of a class. Let me 
suggest a few of these : 

Before prescribing for a disease it is important to make a 
proper diagnosis of the case. A depraved condition is not 
reached in a few days. It is the result of habit and this habit 
is usually due to some influence unknown to teacher or parent. 
For a pupil who has done wrong, frankly to look at his case 
and to discover for himself the error, its cause, and remedy, 
is usually the first step toward reform. 

To be of value such investigation must be made of the 
pupil's own free will. It will not be made in this way unless 
the teacher is really in sympathy with the child. A good way 
to correct a bad habit is to appeal to a worthy interest and, 
if possible, have attention centered upon it until the individual 
identifies himself with it as an end to be realized. 

There are those who say " such rules would be of no service 
in such a case. There is an instinctive something which guides 
the teacher to an understanding of the actual conditions, and 
if he has not that natural power no amount of training will 



The Psychological Factor of Educational Science. 85 

give it." Now, it is true that in the particular case quoted the 
school principal did not think of a set of rules in succession to 
see which might apply to the particular case, and yet he is 
positive that had it not been for a preliminary reflective study 
of children and of the psychology of volition it would never 
have occurred to him to adopt such a course as he did adopt. 

There are facts concerning children which are known by 
every experienced teacher and which are at great variance 
with usually-accepted opiniork; e.g., 1 have known very many 
cases where boys have been given an option between a three 
days' suspension from school and corporal punishment. I 
never knew of a boy who did not select the corporal punish- 
ment in preference to the suspension. Teachers of long 
experience see nothing remarkable in such a statement while 
those who have not had experience with groups of boys are 
inclined to view it as incredible. In a professional training 
course such as I have referred to the student-teacher follows 
a line of analysis similar to that indicated in the former 
example of myopia, but in this case leading to a consideration 
of the subject of truancy. He investigates the subject from 
the standpoint of ethics, of child study, of the formation of 
habits, and of detailed concrete cases similar to the fore- 
going in which certain remedies have proved effective. In so 
far as is practicable by actual contact with children in the 
classroom he forms a habit of rational investigation. Thus 
he gains an insight which enables him to deal with such cases 
in his subsequent teaching experience, with a skill which he 
would never have attained if left entirely to himself. 

3. Treatment of Nonhahitual and Habitual Coordinations. — 
I shall conclude by an example of the application of psycho- 
logical fact to educational science in a specific field of the 
attentive activity. The following are three out of very many 
psychological facts which have been established in the study 
of attention : 



86 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

1st. To concentrate attention upon a difficulty to be over- 
come aids the reconstruction. The power to inhibit irrelevant 
matters, to confine one's attention to the subject in hand, means 
mastery of the difficulty with the minimum expenditure of 
time and energy. 

2nd. To concentrate attention upon a well-established habit 
is to arrest the activity by interfering with the fluidity of the 
process. 

The ordinary experience of stage fright is a good example 
of this. The performer may know his lines perfectly, but the 
extreme self-conscious concentration causes him to stumble 
and halt. One finds it impossible to walk a plank fifty feet 
above the ground, not because the operation is more difficult 
than in the customary position, but because realizing the 
danger of making a misstep one concentrates the attention 
upon a habitual activity which requires no concentration, and 
this concentration produces an artificial activity of weak and 
erratic coordinations. This affords an explanation for the 
success of the method of concentrating the attention upon 
something else in such a way as to leave the habitual activity 
free from interference. 

3rd. As a result of these two facts, and of the principle of 
the' "unity of attention" previously referred to, it follows that 
in any activity the quickest reaction or reconstruction is made 
when the attention is focused upon the point of greatest 
difficulty and when the comparatively habitual reflex phases 
of the activity are neglected. 

When this third fact is brought as a contribution to educa- 
tional science it assumes the form that (in learning) the focus 
of attention should be directed upon that part of the problem 
which presents the greatest difficulty and habitual activities 
should be allowed to take care of themselves. 

The following are everyday examples of ways in which such 
a principle may be applied in the schoolroom : 



The Psychological Factor of Educational Science. 87 

(a) In learning how to spell the word " island " a pupil who 
has studied phonics, and who hears the word pronounced for the 
first time, is able without any assistance, and without having 
ever seen the written word, to spell the word correctly, with 
the single exception that he omits the letter " s." Time spent 
in emphasizing the five self-evident letters is worse than 
wasted. Attention should be given to the real difficulty 
presented by the silent letter. 

(6) In learning simple addition, when proceeding from prob- 
lems which do not to those which do involve " carrying," 
the entire activity is habitual until the pupil reaches the 
point where he has summed up the first column which gives 
a greater total than nine. He has then simply to apply the 
previous knowledge gained in the study of notation to the 
peculiar obstacle presented by the new situation and this is a 
comparatively easy task if the attention be not unnecessarily 
spread out over other subjects requiring no investigation. 

Such a list might be extended almost indefinitely and still 
include cases where this principle is being violated every day 
and where by exercising care the value of the work might be 
doubled. 

Now, the teacher in training should in this case, as in the 
two previous examples, follow a line of investigation which 
will render the principle consciously explicit and foi'm a habit 
which will ensure the application of the principle in future 
work. 

An analysis of the attentive act in relation to educational 
procedure suggests the problem. Then follows an investigation 
from the theoretical and practical sides. A good example of 
the systematic way in which such problems are now being 
dealt with is furnished by a series of experiments conducted 
by Professors Angel 1 and Moore and described in an article 
entitled " Reaction Time : A Study in Attention," Psycho- 
logical Eeview, 1896, Vol. Ill, p. 245. 



88 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

These experiments establish beyond a doubt, from the stand- 
point of experimental psychology, the truth of the principle of 
attention to which I have just alluded. Experiments have 
also been performed in the schoolroom which demonstrate the 
fact that children do learn more quickly when attention is 
withdrawn from the easy and habitual and directed upon the 
new and difficult coordination. 

The fact thus fully apprehended, the student-teacher, as 
in the preceding examples, proceeds to consider methods of 
diagnosis and treatment. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE TECHNIQUE OP EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. 

In the previous chapters I have endeavored to prove that 
a science of education is possible and that the professional 
training of teachers is a necessity. I shall conclude by a 
brief consideration of the present content or technique of 
educational science, and of ways in which this content may 
be improved and increased. 

The number of publications on any one of the subjects 
referred to on p. 12 as forming part of a teacher's training 
course is very great, and the bibliography* of educational 
science has now become in itself a study of no small propor- 
tions. An attempt to enumerate these publications or to 
classify them according to order of merit would be quite 
beyond the scope of the present work. 

While it must be admitted that much of this material when 
measured by a correct standard is found wanting it is also 
equally true that a large portion of it is the result of a highly- 
specialized type of investigation and has survived for a suffi- 
cient period of time to show that it has proved of practical 
value in the solution of educational problems. Notwith- 
standing this valuable residuum I think it must be conceded 
that educational science has not made progress commensurate 
with its possibilities and importance. 

* See Bibliography of Education, Munroe. 
Bibliography of Education, Hall. 
Bibliography of Education, Hodgina. 

Books on education in the libraries of Columbia University, Library Bulletin 
No. S. 



90 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

Preyer in speaking of German schools says {Nature 
Forschung und Schule, Zeit 3, 1887), " During the last decade 
nature investigation has without doubt gained greater influ- 
ence than ever before — on almost all sciences and arts, on 
industry and means of communication, on the relations of men 
to one another and to the world. In ever-widening circles its 
growing power is felt ; and this activity is greeted by some 
with joy as the greatest culture advance ; by others recognized 
with regret and opposition. In only one of its titled terri- 
tories has the newer nature investigation until now not planted 
its flag, viz., in the school. In a surprising manner, during 
the general forward development of human training on a 
natural, scientific basis, the schools — the special institutions 
for development — have remained behind. They have in the 
midst of the fresh spring green of the present retained the 
withered leaves of the former time." 

The advances made since the time when Preyer made this 
statement have been great, but they are scarcely to be com- 
pared with what will be accomplished when the full meaning 
of the new scientific attitude is thoroughly comprehended and 
rationally applied in education. 

Many deterring influences which were then rife have not 
yet vanished and it may not be out of place to examine a few 
of the conditions which have retarded the growth of educa- 
tional science. 

1st. It sometimes happens that incompetent persons are 
appointed to the supervision of educational afiairs or to posi- 
tions as instructors in teachers' training-schools. Possessing 
no faith in educational science and no practical knowledge 
concerning it, instead of leading the way, and inspiring and 
encouraging to better things, they act simply as clogs' upon 
the wheels of progress. 

A striking illustration of the results of incompetent super- 
vision is afforded by the history of the educational system 



The Technique of Educational Science. 91 

of the kingdom of Greece as outlined in an article — " Der 
eleraentar unterricht im Konigreich Griechenland " — by Ch. 
Pamarku, Athens, in Deutche Zeitschrift fiir Auslandisches 
Unterrichts wesen for October, 1900. The article states that, 
from 1834 to 1895 there was a steady advance in education. 
At the latter date the system had become well organized. 
There was careful and intelligent supervision from the 
"Ministry of Education" down. The finances of the system 
were placed upon a sound basis. There were free schools, 
trained teachers, compulsory education, etc. During the 
three years immediately preceding 1895 the yearly attend- 
ance increased from 60,000 to 158,644 pupils. The writer 
goes on to say : — 

"On the 27th of September, 1895, the law concerning elementary 
and common school instruction was passed, which is still in force. By 
the 78th article of this law all laws and other regulations which 
until then had had some influence on the advance of common-school 
instruction were repealed. 

"According to this law, which probably stands alone in the history 
of education in civilized countries, the duty of supervising and regu- 
lating public instruction was taken from the minister and transferred 
to inspectors and supervisory boards, that is to say, higher clergjonen, 
land owners, merchants and manufacturers, physicians and lawyers, 
directors of private schools and pensioned military men. The local 
boards were completely ignored and made servants of the inspectors, 
as these and the supervisory boards took from them the right to 
govern the schools in their communities and even deprived them of 
the privilege of supervising them. The teachers were robbed of their 
independence and made flatterers and servants of the inspectors, being 
forced to ask them for appointments, for continuation in their positions 
or rank, or for nontransference and nondismissal. The unity of the 
public-school system is destroyed, as the management lies in the hands 
of fourteen diSerent supervisory boards and an equal number of 
inspectors. Thus there results a confusion and chaos in the condition 
of the public schools, as now there remains only an absolutely insuffi- 
cient and unsafe foundation, viz., the income of the communities. The 
instruction itself is ruined and torn into shreds. The unified and 
printed programs existing until then are thrown to the scrap pile 



92 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

and are replaced by the most widely- varying theories of education and 
instruction held by the inspectors of each locality. Without warning 
schools are closed, opened again, diminished and enlarged. With all 
this the money of the state is wasted, as cannot be otherwise with the 
different supervisory boards, subject to no higher authority, and to no 
supervision, swaying back and forth, and with the other concealed, 
influential elements back of them." 

In training-schools the evil effects of such appointments are 
not so evident as in supervision, but in the end they are, if 
possible, more disastrous. From such instructors the teacher 
in training is almost certain to gain an attitude toward 
educational science which renders subsequent contribution 
impossible. The work of the course often degenerates into 
a grind on " methods " outlined in prescribed text-books, or 
into a blind imitation of a teaching model furnished by the 
instructor.* 

In cases where the instructor possesses scholarship but no 
professional knowledge there is a tendency to adopt the theory 
that the one thing requisite in such a course is to gain a 
more thorough academic knowledge of the subjects which the 
students will subsequently be required to teach. The time is 
then devoted to a study of nonprofessional subjects and to 
preparation for a final examination which is professional only 
in name. 

This latter type of training is to be preferred to the 
" method " grind, for the student gains a more thorough 
knowledge of the subjects to be taught and this, as we have 
seen, is a most important factor in the teacher's preparation. 
Nevertheless as a professional training course for teachers it 
fails for two reasons : (1) The mastery of a subject on the 
academic or scholarship side can be more economically and 
satisfactorily gained at a high school or university than in a 
professional training-school. (2) No matter how familiar the 
teacher may be with the facts of a subject, no matter how 

*See article on "Lessons of School Exhibits at Paris," by Miss Smith, Educational 
Review, Vol. XXI, p. 176. 



The Technique of Educational Science. 93 



thoroughly he may have prepared for his academic examina- 
tion, he is still unprepared, without further consideration, to 
present the subject to a class. He must reconsider the subject 
from the standpoint of the learning activity, must study its 
genesis and logical relations, and prepare himself to translate 
it into the consciousness of the learner. He must put himself 
in the learner's place and give heed to countless considera- 
tions which are in no sense included in the preparation for a 
university examination. 

This reconstructive work legitimately falls within the scope 
of a professional training course, and can be properly con- 
ducted only when the instructor is fully alive to the necessity 
for such reconstruction and thoroughly prepared for the work 
not only by an academic knowledge of the subject but also by 
a previous practical investigation of educational problems. 

2nd. Further, much of the tardiness in the advance of 
educational science has been due to the fact that probably in 
no other profession has there been such great waste of good 
material and so much unscientific production as in teaching. 
A large percentage of those who have been engaged in educa- 
tional work have never contributed a single iota to educational 
science. There have been excellent teachers who have passed 
away in silence whose experiences if recorded would have been 
of inestimable value to education. There are many teaching 
at the present time who from undue modesty, or from the 
pressure of daily duties, neglect to give expression to the 
results of their experience and hence fail to contribute an 
assistance to their fellows, which would be of more lasting 
benefit to the race than will accrue from much of that which 
now occupies their attention. On the other hand, there have 
been a large number who have contributed but whose pro- 
ductions are comparatively yalueless owing to unscientific 
methods of investigation. So much is this latter the case 
that one of the greatest problems confronting the young 



94 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

student of educational science is how to select the valuable 
and discard the worthless. 

The laws of control most adequate to the needs of the situ- 
ations which arise in educational work are not learned by 
casual observation nor by practical, everyday experience. 
They are discovered and verified only by careful and continued 
investigation just as are the laws of any other science. Edu- 
cational advance has suffered severely from an ignoring of 
this fact. The result has been, on the one hand, to proceed 
empirically, depreciating all experimental work, and, on the 
other, to experiment, but to experiment unscientifically. 
There has been a tendency to prejudge the case and formulate 
hastily-constructed hypotheses. Where experiments have been 
performed they have not been properly guarded from error 
nor continued long enough to warrant any definite conclusion. 
With some experimenters a certain hypothesis was to be 
established, a few unscientific observations or experiments 
were made which could be interpreted in such a way as 
to support the preconceived theory, and it was forthwith 
propounded as an established scientific fact. 

Other experimenters have gone to the opposite extreme. 
They have proceeded in an aimless fashion to collect trivial 
and unrelated facts, leading nowhere, in order (Micawber-like) 
to see if " something would turn up." They have simply 
observed at random and described what they have seen. As 
a result much valuable time has been spent in collecting data 
which twenty years hence will, in all probability, be forgotten, 
having produced little or no practical result. An eminent 
geologist has said that when on an exploring expedition he 
always has a number of geological hypotheses in the fore- 
ground of his consciousness each clamoring for confirmation 
or disproof, and much of the educational investigation of the 
past would have been more valuable if the experimenter had 
proceeded in a similar way. 



The Technique of Educational Science. 95 

Another waste of energy has been in the reduplication of 
experiments through ignorance of what has been already 
accomplished. A good illustration of such repetition is 
afforded by the history of the problem of primary reading. 
There have been thousands of experiments performed to test 
the merits of different systems— the alphabet, the word, the 
sentence, the phonic, or some form of eclectic method. Many 
of these investigations have been fairly scientific, have cost 
large sums of money, and have extended over many years. 
The results have established certain facts beyond all question ; 
e.g., that for the most rapid acquirement of power of word 
recognition a certain use of phonics is indispensable. There 
are certain other points upon which the conclusions are not so 
clear; e.g., the value of diacritical marks. Notwithstanding 
this there is scarcely a city in which there are not some schools 
where instead of directing attention to unsolved problems 
these historical experiments are being repeated in the pioneer 
stages and will be abandoned before they reach the high-water 
mark of former investigation. 

Another illustration of this is furnished by some of the 
nature-study courses put upon the educational market a few 
years ago as new discoveries, but which seem like copies, 
marred in transfer, of a course carefully worked out and 
applied in an eastern normal school twenty years ago. They 
are not copies however. The discoverer of each, ignorant of 
what had already been done, had found the entrance to a 
mine of wealth, but with less skill and with ruder implements 
than those who preceded him, had not secured as valuable ore 
as they, nor had he even entered the chambers of richer metal 
now being mined by others whose contributions are an 
improvement on all preceding work. 

The farmer of sixty years ago cut his grain with a sickle. 
Thirty years later he used a cradle with which he could cut 
five times as much as with the former implement. To-day he 



96 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

rides a machine by means of which he performs with ease a 
task which a hundred men by the sickle method would find 
difficult to accomplish. Much of the educational experimenta- 
tion of the present time is like that of a man who, ignorant of 
later inventions, devotes himself to the improvement of some 
kind of cradle. 

In no other sphere of labor is it so true as in education that 
half the world do not know how the other half live nor how 
their ancestors have lived. 

A few years ago in the heart of old London, so famous for 
its wealth of literary production, I observed a school class 
laboriously learning to read by counting one for the commas 
and four for the full stops. In European countries, renowned 
for their educational institutions, I visited schools where rows 
of pupils were seated at long, old-fashioned desks, on benches 
without backs, where the children's feet did not touch the 
floor, where some of the pupils faced a wall less than three 
feet from their eyes, and where in one class pupils were learning 
arithmetic by copying long-division solutions which had been 
worked out for them, and were varying the monotony by here 
and there inserting a mistake. However, it would be entirely 
incorrect to say that these examples are typical of all European 
schools. As a matter of fact it would be difficult to find 
better work than was done in another classroom of the same 
building in which the foregoing reading incident occurred. 

Nor is it necessary to go to the Old World to meet with 
schoolroom surprises. If those who insist that " the teaching 
of our schools has become too objective and too interesting " 
were to visit certain of these schools they would be speedily 
disillusioned. The fact is that many educational critics have 
taken their cue from a brief observation of an isolated experi- 
mental station or from the public address of some extremist 
and have proceeded to criticize on the basis that these represent 
the universal conditions. 



2^he Technique of Educational Science. 97 

What is needed, perhaps, most of all is a careful summarizing 
of the best that is being done and has been done, a history of 
education, prepared by a committee of trained experts who 
have set themselves resolutely to work in a truly scientific 
spirit to separate the wheat from the chaff, to consign inter- 
esting curiosities to the museum of antiquities, and to "boil 
down and sugar off" the best that has been discovered in all 
times and in all countries. Such a compilation must be avail 
able if mistakes are to be prevented and the best results 
obtained from the expenditure of energy. Much is now being 
done in this direction and much more must be accomplished 
before the student of educational science can hope to have a 
fair start as compared with students in other departments of 
scientific research.* 

A professional training course should combine the theo- 
retical and the practical. The staff and equipment of the 
training, practice, and laboratory schools should be the best 
available, and the length of the course such as to render the 
formation of correct habits possible. Care should also be 
taken to see that in the post-graduate life of the supervisor 
and teacher there be opportunities for further development 
and for contribution to educational science. The advantages 
of travel, observation of work in other schools, study of the 
best educational literature, attendance at teachers' conven- 
tions, etc., have been greatly underestimated. 

3rd. Another and perhaps the greatest cause which has 
militated against the advance of educational science has been 
the belief that education is simply an art, that there is no 
such thing as a science of education and that consequently the 
laws, if there be any laws, governing educational procedure 
are to be derived from other sciences. It is held that if the 
teacher has had a thorough training in the cognate sciences, 
ethics, psychology, etc., he has when he begins to teach simply 
to apply the knowledge thus gained. Proceeding in this way 

*8ee report of Department of Superintendence, N. E. A., Feb., 1902. 



98 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

it is evident that any discovery that is made is made from the 
standpoint of the particular science studied and not from the 
educational standpoint. 

Now, the results of the application of this theory to pro- 
fessional training are disastrous in many ways : (1) The time 
required to get a good woi-king knowledge of all the sciences 
brought under contribution in education would require more 
than an ordinary lifetime ; e.g., so unimportant a subject as 
schoolroom temperature, subsequently referred to, demands 
some knowledge of experimental psychology, hygiene, physics, 
chemistry, architecture, etc. The student in training, then, 
in applying the foregoing principle without having considered 
the educational requirements sufficiently to know how much 
of each is essential, is almost certain to devote himself exclu- 
sively to some of these subjects and to neglect the others. 
(2) In such a course the emphasis laid upon the proper mate- 
rial from the standpoint of the science studied may attach 
importance to what is comparatively unimportant from the 
standpoint of education and partially or entirely ignore the 
points most requisite in the teacher's preparation ; e.g., a 
knowledge of the Alrutz theory* regarding cold, warm, hot 
and smarting-pain sensations, while absolutely necessary for 
anything like an adequate knowledge of the subject of tem- 
perature from the standpoint of experimental psychology, 
would be of little or no value in the treatment of an actual 
schoolroom case. The fact that the thermometer affords the 
only safe criterion for temperature is of slight importance 
in psychological science and would be referred to only 
incidentally if mentioned at all, and yet, as we shall see 
later, a working knowledge of this fact is necessary in 
educational work. 

It is not implied in this that a definite and thorough 
training in such subjects as physics, psychology and hygiene 
per se is not a desirable and necessary preliminary for the 

• See Jftnd, Vol. VI (1897), p. 445, Vol. VII (1898), p. 141. 



The Technique of Educational Science. 99 

teacher's work. The argument is that the teacher in training 
must be judicious in selecting how much of each of these is 
essential and how much is merely desirable. He cannot know 
all that he would like to know, or that under other conditions 
of life he could and ought to know, but he can come up to the 
measure of his present possibilities with due regard to all his 
existing conditions as best he can determine them. 

Again, it is sometimes said, " There are a few underlying 
principles in educational theory; these can be easily memor- 
ized and subsequently applied." As a result of this view the 
training course sometimes consists simply in a memorization 
of principles and of methods of teaching. 

Now, as I have endeavored to show there is no such educa- 
tional theory independent of educational practice, and if there 
were it would be comparatively worthless. 

I studied chemistry from a book for six months before 
seeing a chemical experiment performed, or performing one 
myself. I learned the names of the elements and their com- 
bining weights, memorized formulas, etc., and could repeat 
much of what was stated in the text-book. That, however, 
was not learning chemistry. When I came to investigate the 
subject in the proper way the residuum of my previous study, 
in so far as it was correct, was of some little value, but, for 
some reason or other, my incorrect attitude toward the subject 
had become habitual and it seemed well-nigh impossible to 
eradicate the old habit. On the whole, the preliminary text- 
book training did more harm than good, for it started me in 
the wrong direction. 

" Do the thing and you will have the power " is as true 
in education as in any other department. There must be 
independent thought on the part of the teacher in training 
if there is to be real progress. While avoiding the errors of 
the follow-nature theory, and while making the best of all 
that the history of education brings to us, there must be 

L.ftfC. 



100 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

formed a habit of looking at things first hand, of lighting 
one's path by the lamp of personal insight. 

The teacher's training-school of the future will be furnished 
with a library, a practice school, and a laboratory school in 
which the student can observe the highest type of work and in 
which investigations will be made from the educational stand- 
point, the conditions being such that the children will not 
suffer from such practice and experimentation. 

In the earlier stages of the course emphasis will be thrown 
upon the inductive side. Students will begin with an inde- 
pendent investigation of the aims and ends of education. 
There will be some experimental psychology and child study 
and some comparison of different educational methods as 
students have already observed them. Before reading much 
pedagogical literature they will learn to adjust themselves 
to a consideration of educational investigation by summoning 
to the foreground of consciousness representations of their 
own past experiences which bear upon the work in hand. 
They will thus be prepared to proceed critically and rationally 
to a consideration of what has been done by others and, in 
the practice school, to test their conclusions and form correct 
habits by actual teaching under supervision. 

Illustrations.— The two following examples are explanatory 
of ways in which educational technique may be discovered 
and utilized in professional training-schools. 

I. Schoolroom Temperature. — Of the methods adopted by 
teachers in the regulation of the temperature of their school- 
rooms the following may be taken as typical : 

(a) The teacher pays no attention to the subject. He is 
physically robust and has accustomed himself to rigorous 
discipline. He is absorbed in his work and does not notice 
extremes of temperature. 

(6) The teacher is sensitive to abnormal thermal conditions, 
but he considers only his personal happiness regardless of that 



The Technique of Educational Science. 101 

of the children and relies entirely upon his own feelings as 
the standard. If he feels too warm he opens a window at 
one side of the room and a door at the other side and turns 
oif the heat. He then forgets all about temperature until he 
finds himself beginning to shiver with cold. He then closes 
the door and the window and turns on the heat. He continues 
to repeat this process from hot to cold and back again to hot 
perhaps a dozen times during the day. 

(c) The teacher has studied the subject of heating and has 
made a hobby of it. He can do nothing and will allow 
the pupils to do nothing unless the temperature is within a 
narrow limit of a few degrees. He is constantly consulting 
the thermometer and the pupils and making changes in the 
heating and ventilation. He has not gained control of the 
subject ; he has permitted it to take possession of him. 

{d) The teacher succeeds in keeping the room properly 
ventilated and at a normal temperature without appearing to 
give the matter special concern. In fact, to a casual observer 
he seems to pay no more attention to the subject than the 
teacher referred to under the first category. There is, however, 
a very great difference. The teacher of this type has learned 
the necessity for controlling the conditions and the methods 
of control. He enlists the wise cooperation of his class. He 
sees that there is a reliable thermometer easily accessible. He 
is familiar with the heating and ventilating apparatus placed 
at his disposal, etc. In other words, in so far as this part of 
his duties is concerned he is proceeding scientifically. 

Let us now enquire how a teacher in training may acquire 
such attitude and power. 

1. Importance of the Problem. — The first step is to familiar- 
ize oneself sufiiciently with the facts to make sure that the 
subject is one which is of actual importance to the educator 
and not of an imaginary or trivial character. A brief con- 
sideration of such facts as the following should be sufiicient 



102 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

to show that the subject is one which cannot be wisely ignored 
by the teacher : 

Sudden changes in temperature are usually attended by 
danger and have often resulted in severe illness and death. 
As a rule extreme sensations of heat and cold resulting from 
sudden changes of temperature cannot be inhibited and they, 
therefore, render satisfactory study impossible. By slowly 
increasing or diminishing the temperature these extremes 
may be reached without the conscious notice of the pupil. 
The abnormal condition is accompanied by certain well- 
defined physiological characteristics ; e.g., flushed face, etc. 
The results of experiments show that under such conditions 
the functioning power of the system is retarded and that the 
accompanying symptoms bear a striking resemblance to those 
of overfatigue. Further, the question of heating is closely 
bound up with the more important problem of ventilation, 
and the teacher cannot properly deal with the one unless he 
understands the other. 

Now, the argument is not that every experience which 
interferes with the educational process should be made the 
object of detailed investigation but that the difiiculty here is 
of so serious a nature as to require such treatment. 

2. Methods of Observation. — Having satisfied himself that 
there is a problem demanding attention, the student-teacher 
next proceeds to study methods of observation and response. 
The question is to determine ways to develop technique, 
which will enable the teacher to properly diagnose the case. 
Considerable scientific material is available in this connection. 
Medical authorities are pretty well agreed, as the result of 
experience and investigation, that the best temperature for 
a I'oom under ordinary schoolroom conditions is from sixty- 
three to sixty-nine degrees Fahrenheit. Any temperature 
between these limits may be considered normal, although 
certain factors may enter in to change these limits; e.g.. 



The Technique of Educational Science. 103 

in a room where all are taking physical exercise the tem- 
perature should be lower. 

Rubner {Lehrhuchder Hygiene, sec. 5, ch. 2, page 157), says : 
' ' In reference to the hygienic demands the first question is to what 
degree our houses should be heated. This varies according to the con- 
ditions of the bodies of the inmates. With muscles at rest and with 
light clothing high degrees of temperature are necessary. For a person 
who is working, or who is wearing heavy clothing, low temperatures 
are sufficient. A hungry person, one who is poorly nourished, easily 
freezes, while a well-nourished person, with a well-developed layer of 
fat, is comfortable. Cold and heat sensitiveness varies ; one may 
become accustomed to a higher or lower temperature of the air. The 
simple feeling of comfort, however, does not demonstrate the suitability 
of a certain temperature. 

' ' With the clothing customary in our latitudes, also with a relative 
humidity of 40 to 50 per cent., living rooms and schoolrooms shoiUd 
have 17 to 19 degrees C. (62.6 to 66.2 degrees F.), nurseries, 18 to 20 
degrees C. (64.4 to 68 degrees F. ), sleeping rooms 14 to 16 degrees C. 
(57.2 to 60.8 degrees F.), sick rooms 16 to 20 degrees C. (60.8 to 68 
degrees F. ), workshops and factories, according to the kind of occu- 
pation, 10 to 17 degrees C. (50 to 62.6 degrees F. ), gymnasiums 13 to 
16 degrees C. (55.4 to 60.8 degrees F.), theaters, concert halls and ball 
rooms 19 to 20 degrees C. (66.2 to 68 degrees F.). 

"The determination of the proper temperature will always present 
difficulties, as only rarely attention is paid to the proper choice of 
clothing, and the differences in clothing, apparently insignificant to the 
lay person or one less observant, are generally perfectly sufficient to 
explain the various opinions on the comfort of the temperature of 
heated rooms. Humid air is felt as warmer than dry air in medium 
and high temperature. 

' ' One can readily comprehend from the above remarks that in the 
unequal occupations of the persons in one room, for instance, in the 
absolute rest of one, and the performance of work by another, it is 
difficult, even impossible, to find a temperature suitable to all. If in a 
schoolroom a temperature is maintained, agreeable for the pupil, the 
limits of endurance of temperature by the teacher, who must exert his 
muscles, will have been reached." 

In discussing the same subject from the schoolroom stand- 
point Dr. Burnham says (Pedagogical Seviinary, Vol. II, p. 31) : 
" lu this country it seems necessary to have the temperature 



104 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

of the schoolroom nearly seventy degrees Fahrenheit. It 
should never exceed this, and, with adequate ventilation, may 
be less. Mr. Rafter investigated the temperature in the 
schoolhouses in Rochester some years ago. By a preliminary 
test he found great variations in temperature in different 
rooms. ' The schoolrooms, numbering more than two hundred, 
were then supplied with thermometers and the teachers care- 
fully instructed as to the manner of taking observations, etc. 
The observations were taken ten times a day for one week.' 
His observations led to the conclusion that ' the temperatures 
invariably increase as perfection in ventilation decreases.' In 
well-ventilated rooms where the temperature ranged from sixty- 
two to sixty-six degrees the teachers usually testified that they 
found the rooms too warm when much above sixty-six degrees." 

Another point of importance concerns the humidity of the 
air. Experiments made by De Chaumont and others indicate 
that in England the moisture in air of standard purity is 
about seventy-three per cent, of saturation. Investigations in 
this country indicate that the humidity in pure air in our 
climate is much less. 

In addition to the assistance derived from the study of the 
best medical and educational literature which has been written 
on the subject, the student will receive valuable aid from an 
investigation of heat and temperature as outlined in standard 
books of physics and physiological psychology and from indi- 
vidual experimentation. 

Such reading and experimentation should, if possible, be 
supplemented by the definite personal investigation of some 
phase of the problem. 

As an illustration of such research work I submit the 
following outline of a series of experiments. My purpose 
was to determine to what extent it is safe for the teacher to 
trust to the temperature sensitiveness of himself and pupils 
without consulting a thermometer. 

The first series consisted of nine tests taken in a normal- 
school class of one hundred teachers in training, all of whom 



The Technique of Educational Science. 



105 



had had a teaching experience of at least one year. In every 
case the student was asked to make an independent guess of 
the temperature of the room. An effort was made to eliminate 
every factor which by way of suggestion or otherwise would 
interfere with the accuracy of the results. With the exception 
of the first test the tests were made in pairs, the first of each 
pair being made soon after the class entered the room and the 
second test half an hour later, the temperature having changed 
during the interim. 

1st. The following is a summary of the nine hundred 
guesses made : * 



TESTS. 


Actual 

Temperature 

of Room in 

Degrees 
Fahrenheit. 


Average 
Guess 
Made 
by 100 

Students. 


Lowest 
Guess 
Made. 


Highest 
Guess 
Made. 


Test 1. 


—Fifteen minutes after stu- 
dents entered room . . . 


70 


62 


50 


73 


Test 2. 


— Five minutes after stu- 
dents entered room . . 


68 


71 


65 


80 


Test 3. 


—Thirty minutes after Test 
No. 2 


72 


69 


65 


72 


Test 4. 


— Fifteen minutes after stu- 
dents entered room . . . 


69 


68 


62 


71 


Test 5. 
Test 6. 


—Thirty minutes after Test 
No. 4 


64 
62 


68 
70 


62 
65 


75 


— Fifteen minutes after stu- 
dents entered room . . . 


75 


Test 7. 


— Thirty minutes after Test 
No. 6 


68 


71 


66 


87 


'Test 8. 


— Fifteen minutes after stu- 
dents entered room . . . 


65 


66 


63 


68 


Test 9. 


— Thirty minutes after Test 
No. 8 


73 


69 


65 


73 









*I am indebted to Professor Angell of the Department of Psychology in the Univer- 
sity of Chicago for suggestions regarding methods of experimentation, and to J. H. 
Putman, B.A., Headmaster of the Provincial Model School, Ottawa, Canada, and other 
members of the staff of the Model School, for data summarized in this report. 



106 



The Possibility of a Science of Education. 



By comparing the average results at the expiration of thirty 
minutes of gradual change of temperature with those at the 
beginning we find : — In Experiments 2 and 3 an increase of 
4 degrees was considered a decrease of 2 degrees ; in Experi- 
ments 4 and 5 a decrease of 5 degrees was considered as no 
change ; in Experiments 6 and 7 an increase of 6 degrees was 
considered an increase of 1 degree ; in Experiments 8 and 9, 
an increase of 8 degrees was considered an increase of 
3 degrees ; in Experiment 8, where there had been an increase 
of 8 degrees in 30 minutes, no student guessed a decrease ; 
84 students guessed an increase of less than 5 degrees, and no 
student an increase of more than 6 degrees. The results 
seemed to indicate pretty clearly : (1) That ability to guess 
temperature improves with practice. (2) That within normal 
limits an increase or decrease of five degrees in half an hour 
cannot be detected by the feelings. 

2nd. The second series of tests was along similar lines and 
included three school classes in addition to the teachers' 
training class. The following is a summary of results : — 



Number of pupils taking \ 
the test j 

Average age of pupils 

Number of minutes elapsing 
from time when class en- 
tered room until test was 
taken 

Number of Fahrenheit de-^ 
grees of change in tem- (^ 
perature during this j 
period J 

Number of pupils who 
thought there had been 
no change in temperature. 

Number of pupils who 
thought the room had 
become warmer 



31 
Girls. 


35 
Boys. 


33 
Boys. 


57 
Boys. 


100 N.S. 
Students 


12 yrs. 


m 


m 


12 


24 


30 


40 


30 


45 


40 


63 

to 
684 

+ 5.5 


63 

to 
69 

+ 6 


67 

to 

58 

-9 


61 

to 

74 

+ 13 


65 
to 
70 

+ 5 


10 


30 


33 


.0 


90 


19 


5 





32 


10 



101 



50 



The Technique of Educational Science. 



107 



Number of pupils who 
thought the room had 
become colder 

Number of pupils who said 
that before their attention 
was drawn to it they had 
noticed that the tempera 
ture was growing uncom 
fortably warm 

Number who said they had 
noticed it as growing un 
comfortably cold 

Teacher's Opinion. 

Temperature at which some 
pupil would notice ris 
iug temperature as ' ' too 
warm " .... 

Temperature at which the 
majority of the class would 
notice it 

Temperature at which some 
pupil would notice fall- 
ing temperature as "too 
cold " 

Temperature at which the 
majority of the class would 
notice it 



15 



10 



73 + 



77 + 



58 



55- 



25 



28 



69 + 



71 + 



64- 



62- 



68 + 



70 + 



65- 



63- 



48 



These experiments tend to establish : (1) That under 
ordinary conditions one cannot guess the temperature of a 
room with sufficient certainty to warrant one in relying upon 
heat and cold sensitiveness as a proper guide to the regulation 
of schoolroom temperature. (2) That as a general rule an 
increase or decrease of five degrees in half an hour cannot be 
detected by either teacher or pupil under ordinary schoolroom 
conditions. 

Now, a further investigation will show that there are certain 
characteristics, e.g., nervousness or drowsiness on the part of 



108 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

the class, which will suggest to the observant teacher that the 
temperature is not normal. Nevertheless the thermometer is 
the only safe guide. We, therefore, conclude that in every 
schoolroom there should be an accurate thermometer, properly' 
placed, and that it should be referred to frequently. 

3. Methods of Resjmnse. — Having learned how to detect 
the abnormality the teacher in training next proceeds to an. 
investigation of ways of correcting the evil. Anything like a 
detailed statement of the best methods of correction would 
lead us too far afield for the present discussion. 

Speaking generally, the teacher should be familiar with the 
physical and chemical science bearing directly on the problem ; 
e.g., the principles of convection and of gaseous diffusion, the 
composition and density of air, impure and pure. He 
should have a practical knowledge of the best means of 
heating and ventilation that have been discovered, should 
know how to obtain the best possible results with such 
apparatus as he has, and be able to suggest or make improve- 
ments when necessary. In short, he should understand the 
entire situation in so far as it has immediate relation to the 
problem in hand. 

To recapitulate, in the investigation of any phase of educa- 
tional technique there is, in the first place, the determination 
of a working conception of the true aim of education. "We 
next seek for means by which to control this process in order 
to attain our end. The focus of the system is always a break 
in experience which requires reconstruction. The point of 
greatest breakdown may be, as in this particular example, a 
negative consideration, a way of relieving a barrier to the 
fluidity of the process. The teacher says, " This room is too 
hot;" she means, "This is a situation which interferes- "with 
the educational activity in hand and this system of experi- 
ence requires reconstruction." 

Such problems are constantly arising and one duty of a 
training course is to prepare the student-teacher to cope with 



The Technique of Educational Science. 109 

such difficulty. The aim determines the problem. All prob- 
lems are not equally important. There are certain difficulties 
which must be solved in some way by every teacher in every 
grade from kindergarten to university. The example taken — 
that of heating and ventilation — belongs to this common class. 
It is far from being the most important kind of problem but, 
although comparatively commonplace, it is of sufficient impor- 
tance to render it necessary that every teacher should spend 
some time in its investigation. 

The determination of the necessity for the consultation of a 
thermometer is but one of the many phases of the problem of 
heating and ventilation and is, therefore, relatively of even 
less importance. 

The foregoing detailed outline of investigation regarding it 
is submitted simply as suggestive of treatment which may be 
adopted regarding countless minor educational problems which 
are still unsolved and which can be profitably worked out by 
a training class without serious interference with the regular 
work of the school. 

II. School Government. — Wherever there is a class there is 
a social institution in which the teacher and the pupils 
participate. The unity of life gives the law equally to the 
one and to the other, just as in the family or in any other 
social institution. There are certain duties and privileges 
pertaining to teacher and to pupil respectively, and these 
have been investigated on the theoretical side, and scientifi- 
cally tested by careful and long-continued experiments. There 
are thousands of definite principles to be found in standard 
works on the subject, whether treated generally as in books 
on ethics, sociology, political economy, etc., or pedagogical ly 
as in books on school organization and management and the 
history of education, which are endorsed by all who have 
investigated the subject. 

These principles or rules do not exist as static pigeon-holes 
into which the teacher can fit each experience. They are 



110 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

valuable only in so far as they serve as instruments of insight 
in clarifying the given situation. They aid common sense ; 
they do not displace it. This is, perhaps, most clearly illus- 
trated in the treatment of school discipline, the rock upon 
which so many young teachers make shipwreck. To take a 
simple example, it is a universally-admitted fact that "human 
nature is such that there is no surer or swifter way to secure 
disobedience on the part of a child than to command him to 
perform certain acts and then to allow the acts to remain 
unperformed." An extreme violation of this principle is seen 
in the conduct of those who flippantly demand improper or 
impossible things and then treat the matter lightly or jest- 
ingly when the child disobeys. But it is sometimes aflBrmed 
as a corollary to this principle that if a teacher gives a 
command in good faith and afterwards finds that he was in 
error he should adhere to his original position for fear of 
weakening his discipline ; e.g., a teacher insists upon the mis- 
pronunciation of a word or gives an incorrect mathematical 
solution or issues an unwise command or blames an innocent 
pupil and afterwards discovers his mistake. The question is, 
Should he endeavor to rectify his error 1 This is no imaginary 
case. Where is the teacher who has not had some such 
experience ? 

Now, if the principle to which I have referred has been 
learned from a book as a final rule to be applied without 
examination of the needs of the particular situation, its eflfect 
in this instance will be to interfere with the general aim of 
the school and probably to defeat the very purpose for which 
the rule is applied, viz., the preservation of good discipline. 
Further, it may prove a strong temptation to the teacher 
to perform what is really from the negative standpoint_ an 
immoral act, by serving as a cloak for leaving undone what 
ought to be done. 

This apparently extreme exception when properly analyzed 
is found to be in entire accord with the rational application 



The Technique of Educational Science. Ill 

of the general principle quoted. The teacher who corrects 
his error in a quiet, manly way does what is best for the 
community under the circumstances and conforms to a 
principle which underlies this and every other ethical law. 
It does not follow that he must adopt a course of perpetual 
apology for every trifling act which is not ideally perfect, nor 
that he is to proceed upon a vacillating method of adminis- 
tration, nor that he shall consider it a light matter to make 
such blunders in the future. The law comes in to emphasize 
the necessity for greater knowledge and deliberation and is 
itself enriched by the possibility of its application to this new 
case. 

"Love of children" and "common sense" are invaluable 
elements in the makeup of a successful disciplinarian, but the 
majority of failures in discipline are not traceable to a lack 
of either the one or the other. Such failures are usually due 
to a hazy conception, or misconception, of the proper social 
relations existing between teacher and pupils, to ignorance of 
what ought to be done under conditions which are almost 
certain to arise, and to the adoption (in an unexpected crisis, 
on the spur of the moment, by sheer force of imitative habit) 
of a method used by some former teacher under entirely 
diflferent conditions — a method which at best was, perhaps, 
a very poor device. In other words, the teacher fails because 
he has not investigated the subject sufficiently to be able to 
anticipate the difficulty and deal with it when it arises. 

So long as human nature and social conditions remain as 
they are, teachers of large classes, especially those in elemen- 
tary schools, are likely to meet with cases of lying, truancy, 
stealing, etc.; and a preliminary investigation of particular 
cases, real or imaginary, will save them from many serious 
mistakes. 

Further, the teacher's failure in discipline often arises from 
ignorance of the actual attitude of the members of the class 



112 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

toward ethical questions, and a natural tendency to consider 
that the aims of pupils are lower than they really are, and to 
forget that the immediacy of the social life of the schoolroom 
renders decisions upon ethical questions a necessity for the 
pupil and affords him an opportunity for observation of details 
outside the range of the teacher's vision, and renders decisions 
upon ethical questions a necessity. 

The mode of development of the technique of educational 
science in one phase of educational work does not differ 
fundamentally from that in any other department; e.g., the 
teacher in training gains an insight which will enable him 
to grapple successfully with difficulties in school government 
by a method similar to that suggested for gaining control of 
the problem of school temperature. 

There is the investigation of the general problem of school 
government and a selection of difficulties which really require 
investigation. There is on the historical side a study of the 
best available literature on the subject, and on the practical 
side an experimental investigation of concrete cases to know 
what ought to be done by teacher and pupils and what is the 
attitude of children toward the problem. 

The following may serve as an illustration of the way in 
which such experimental investigation may be conducted : 

Some years ago with a view to determine the attitude of 
children toward the subject of " talebearing " I sent a series 
of questions to a number of teachers with the request that 
they submit them to their pupils. Replies were received from 
one thousand four hundred and sixty-nine persons from 
schools in various localities. The answers were written by 
pupils during composition hour; no comment was made by 
the teacher. One hundred and six replies were i*eceived-from 
teachers in training, one hundred from high-school students, 
and the remaining one thousand two hundred and sixty-three 
from public-school pupils. 



The Technique of Educational Science. 113 

The following case was proposed for consideration : 
"John throws a snowball through a pane of glass in the 
schoolroom window. James sees him do it. No one else 
sees him do it. They know that if they report the case the 
only punishment will be that John will be required to pay 
for a new pane of glass." 

Pupils were requested to answer " yes " or " no " to each 
of the twelve questions proposed and to give their reasons. 
1st Question. " Should John tell on himself if the teacher 
asks him if he broke the pane % " 
2nd. " Should John tell on himself if he is not asked?" 
3rd. " Should James tell on John without waiting to see if 
John is going to tell on himself and without being 
asked to tell ? " 
4th. " If James is asked to tell, should he tell without wait- 
ing to see if John is going to tell on himself?" 
5th. " If John does not tell on himself should James ask 

him to tell?" 
6th. " If John then refuses to tell, and James is not asked to 

tell, should James tell ? " 
7th. " If John refuses to tell, and James is asked to tell, 

should James tell ? " 
8th. " When the teacher finds that the pane of glass is 
broken should he say to the class that he wished 
the boy who broke it to report privately?" 
9th. " If the boy does not report privately should the teacher 
try to find out who broke the pane of glass ? " 
10th. " Should he ask each boy if he broke the pane ? " 
11th. "Should he ask each boy if he knew who broke the 

pane ? " 

12th.. "If every boy says he did not break the pane, and 

James says he knows who broke it, should the teacher 

ask James to tell who broke it ? " 

These questions as outlined were subsequently discussed at 

large assemblies of teachers and the greatest diversity of 



114 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

opinion was expressed. A number said that they believed 
" the quietest way to be the best " and that they made it a 
rule in discipline to avoid all disagreeable matters ; in the 
case quoted they would simply see that the furniture was 
replaced at the expense of the community and would ask no 
questions. Some said that under no conditions would they 
allow tattling in school ; they made it a rule always to punish 
any pupil who informed on another, no matter what the 
circumstances might be. Others held that it is the duty of 
everyone to see to it that the one who does the damage pays 
for the repairs ; they acted on the principle that " to conceal 
crime is to abet crime" and they made it a rule always to 
punish a pupil who withholds information under such con- 
ditions as those in the particular case proposed. In other 
words, in some cases, at least, the solution had been arrived 
at and acted upon with little or no deliberation on the part 
of the teacher. 

On the other hand, the written answers of the thirteen 
hundred high and public school children near the adolescent 
period showed that they were practically unanimous in their 
assent to the following statements : 
1st. The cost of repairs to school property damaged by a 

pupil should be borne by the pupil or his parents, 

and should not be imposed upon the other school 

supporters. 
2nd. The punishment by " discipline of consequences " in the 

particular case proposed is a just punishment. 
3rd. It is the duty of the pupil who does the damage to 

inform the proper authorities in order that repairs 

may be made and that the community shall not 

suffer. 
4th. It is the duty of the teacher to endeavor to have the 

repairs made by the proper party. 
5th. "What boys call " a row in school " is a very disagreeable 

thing and should be avoided. 



The Technique of Educational Science. 115 

6th. " Tattling " is a selfish and cowardly habit, not to be 
tolerated except in case of little children who " do 
not know any better." 
7th. It is a " mean thing for a boy in such a case not to 
tell on himself and so leave it that the property 
may not be repaired and other boys may be placed 
under suspicion." 
8th. Every case should be decided on its own merits and 
not by some fixed and inexorable law. 

A pupil twelve years old in answer to one question naively 
remarked, " Whether the boy who saw the furniture broken 
should tell or not might depend on how large the other boy 
was. " 

This example is not taken to prove that pupils always know 
what is right or that they always act up to the full extent of 
their knowledge. It may be said in passing, however, that 
the wider and more continued one's experience has been the 
more likely one is to have faith in the ideals of children and 
to trust to their sense of honor. 

Nor is the illustration offered as a form of child study to 
be adopted without consideration. There are sacred temples 
within the citadel of the soul which should not be rudely 
entered. It is possible that much of the so-called ethical 
study of children should never have been carried on, and 
that the results are at best only a test of the peculiar tenets 
in vogue in the social environment of the child. 

Many of the criticisms on such study, however, proceed on 
the assumption that those who do not believe in the training 
of teachers never make mistakes of this kind. I have seen 
one of these untrained experimenters spend an entire after- 
noon with a class of fifty pupils investigating in minute 
details the pros and cons of a fight which had occurred on 
the school ground at noon. As a result of the experiment a 
dislike for school was created on the part of the pupils, and 



116 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

on the ethical side the influence tended rather to immoral 
habit than otherwise. A trained expert would have gained 
by private interview in five minutes a more adequate view of 
the situation than this teacher gained in two hours. 

The methods of discipline resorted to by the untrained 
teacher in "getting experience," often mar the harmony of 
the schoolroom and injure innocent pupils, who are compelled 
to gaze in trembling and humiliation upon scenes which stamp 
their impress indelibly upon the memory. 

No doubt the teacher improves by the experience thus 
gained and regrets the mistakes of the formative period, but 
what about the children ? A careful record of such irrational 
experiments, if it could be secured, would prove a convincing 
argument in favor of a judicious form of child study, and of a 
proper preparation on the part of teachers. 

There are many whose opinions are worthy of careful con- 
sideration who agree with the statement that " teachers who 
know nothing of the reflective aspects of their calling, who do 
not try to comprehend as well as to love their pupils, who 
despise science because it cannot take the place of devotion 
and of instinct, may be successful teachers." So far as I have 
been able to observe, however, such teachers invariably fail 
when put to the test of actual experience. 

The conditions of an ordinary elementary school class — 
and it is to such a class that the principle is supposed to be 
especially applicable — are usually such as to test to the utmost 
the resources of the thoroughly-prepared teacher both as 
regards presentative material and methods to be applied. The 
teacher who before being placed under such conditions depre- 
ciates the efforts of former teachers, and imagines that an 
abstract principle of love will be sufficient to carry him over 
all obstacles, resembles Kant's " light dove which, piercing in 
her easy flight the air and perceiving its resistance, imagines 
that flight would be easier still in empty space." If he really 



The Technique of Educational Science. 117 



loves children he discovers his error and endeavors under 
circumstances of greatest difficulty, and often at the expense 
of his vitality, to correct his mistake. 

But after all is it possible for a teacher to "love pupils, 
without trying to comprehend them"? Does not true love 
always express itself in an eflfort in some way to be of service 
to the object of its affection"? This means a sympathetic 
interest which implies a willingness to put oneself in the place 
of the one to be helped and to see things from his standpoint, 
and surely this cannot be done without an effort to understand 
the situation. 

There is a better way than that adopted by the teacher who 
relies entirely upon the love instinct, on the one hand, or that 
adopted by the superficial pedant who works entirely by copied 
rules, on the other. 

One of the functions of a teacher's training-school, as I 
understand it, is to prevent either of these classes from 
attempting to teach. A training course should be only for 
those who do possess natural aptitude for teaching. It should 
enable them to combine love's individual liberty of action with 
the insight gained through training and experience, and so the 
more nearly to attain the lofty ideal of a true educationist. 
This implies an ability, as each of the endless contingencies 
of school life arises, at once to select the best possible line of 
conduct having in view past experience, the present needs of 
the situation and the development of the child for his subse- 
quent place in the social structure.* 

* For other examples of similar investigation by the author see : 
(a) "Schoolroom Fatis-ue," School Journal, New York, 1896, p. f>1Z. 
(fi) " Ethics of Talebearing," Proceedings Ontario Educational Association, 
Toronto, 1898, p. 238. 

(c) "Canadian Normal Schools," Pedagogical Seminary, Clark University 1894 
p. 461. 



118 The Possibility of a Science of Education. 

Summary. 

In the foregoing argument I have endeavored to establish 
the following : — 

1st. In considering the meaning of the term "science" 
emphasis should be placed upon the functional or dynamic 
phase of science as furnishing a carefully-constructed instru- 
ment of control by which future advance will be rendered less 
difficult. 

2nd. If we adopt a functional criterion for science and 
education it follows that a science of education is possible. 

3rd. Educational science is not an application of any other 
science or group of sciences but is itself an independent 
science with a technique of its own developed by an investi- 
gation of problems from a purely educational standpoint. 

4th. The aims of educational science are formulated mainly 
upon an ethical basis ; the means upon a psychological basis. 

5th. All teachers should receive professional training, 

6th. A good physique, natural aptitude, scholarship and 
culture, should be demanded as prerequisites to such training, 

7th. The adverse criticisms usually urged against the pro- 
fessional training of teachers are chiefly due to four causes : 
(a) A misstatement of the real question at issue. 
(h) Lack of knowledge concerning the actual facts, 
(c) Defects in existing training-schools. 
{d) A static view of education and of science. 



APPENDIX. 

QUOTATIONS FROM REPLIES RECEIVED FROM UNIVERSITY 
PROFESSORS. 

" Speaking generally, the first and most essential prerequisite 
for placing the training of teachers upon a scientific basis is 
insistence upon the most thoi'ough and scholarly attainments 
in the subjects to be taught. 

" In addition to that the more one can know of the history 
of education, and the organization of educational systems with 
their consequent results in the producing of men, the better 
and wiser teacher and administrator is one likely to be. 

" There is at present too great diversity of opinion touching 
the ' true psychological gospel ' of the educational process 
to render insistence upon assent to any one theory either 
justifiable or wise. 

" Personally I believe that modern psychology with its 
pedagogical implications is of utmost significance for sanity 
and wisdom of procedure in elementary instruction. 

" I think that such knowledge is, under the existing educa- 
tional system in this country, of less moment as one goes upward 
in the educational levels, and, therefore, of least importance 
practically in university work. Even there, however, I think 
such knowledge undoubtedly conduces to judicious and intelli- 
gent method. 

"It is not for a moment implied in all this that anyone can 
be converted into a good teacher by the employment of any 
method whatever. It is a question of simply securing the 
maximum of efficiency from specific individuals. 

119 



1 20 Appendix. 

" The great teacher will still be born rather than made ; 
he will in largest measure use sound methods in the actual 
conduct of his work instinctively." 

"The normal school emphasizes method; the college insists 
on knowledge. The happy mean is best." 

"When the public recognizes the lamentable deficiency of 
present methods it will demand better trained teachers. The 
recognition and the demand will come gradually. The present 
system is emphatically more desirable than no system, but it 
could be greatly improved in all grades." 

"More can, must and will be done to make teaching a 
profession in the highest sense of the term." 

" Modern pedagogical courses tend to save beginners from 
making the mistakes which their predecessors made and to 
learn like wise men from the failure of others." 

" Professional training of the right kind and within proper 
limits is desirable for all teachers from the university down." 

" For secondary, college and university teachers the first 
requisite is to know the subject, and the second to be endowed 
by Providence with common sense ; a knowledge of the history 
of education, of psychology and of the art of teaching, are 
highly desirable, but by no means so desirable as the two 
requisites named above." 

" Most normal schools emphasize methods regardless of 
whether the subject has been mastered. On the other hand, 
college teachers, while insisting on a thorough knowledge of 
subjects, often take but little pains in presenting subjects as 
they ought to be presented. There is a happy mean which 
would improve both classes of teachers." 

"The teaching of methods and school routine is likely to 
do more harm than good. If the history of education "and 
psychology are attempted they should not be the mutilated 
things they now are. They should form parts of general 
history and psychology in a true scientific sense." 



Appendix. 121 

" Experience in teaching should precede professional train- 
ing." 

" The present academic requirements for professional study 
should be raised." 

" The pedagogical braining in normal schools and universities 
is good only in spots." 

" We cannot advantageously combine instruction in the 
subject-matter of knowledge and instruction in methods of 
communicating that knowledge," 

" The main defect of teachers at present seems to be a lack 
of knowledge of the subjects which they undertake to teach." 

" As a poor method becomes good in the hands of one who 
enjoys it, so a good method becomes positively bad when used 
by one who has not adapted himself to it." 

" If a teacher has not a thorough knowledge of his subject, 
methods won't save him." 

" The lessons which a teacher in training actually teaches 
under the observation and subsequent criticism of a competent 
and experienced teacher is, in my opinion, the only part of the 
present system that is of value." 

" The great weakness is not in the training of teachers but 
in the political nature of appointments and the meagerness of 
salaries offered, which fill the schools with men of lesser qualities 
and with immature girls." 

" Normal schools should confine themselves to the training 
of teachers for elementary schools." 

" University pedagogical training should be post graduate." 

" I should not favor any sacrifice of scholarship to technical 
professional training." 

" The good teacher is born not made. The best student 
is the best teacher. He who keeps up his enthusiasm for 
scientific truth and gives to it a personal interest in his 
students will be the most successful teacher everywhere." 



122 Appendix. 

" I do not believe there can be much profit in learning to 
teach a subject by one who is not proficient in the subject." 

" Professional training for university teachers would be 
undesirable. It is better to depend on our present general 
method of subjecting the teacher to university training and 
taking the strong man when he is kind enough to turn up." 

" The best training lies in working with a good worker and 
catching his spirit." 

" The training of teachers is on the best scientific basis 
attainable when it includes the best of what is comprised in 
the courses leading up to the two degrees of A.B. and Ph.D." 

" Teachers in elementary schools have not a sufficient 
background of information discipline in subject-matter. In 
universities there is lack of method. Every teacher should 
have a college education or its equivalent, some instruction 
in general educational problems and history, and, for most 
teachers, some training in technique. In cases where they 
have studied with good teachers and have natural ability the 
last element may possibly be omitted. Communities should 
pay enough to make it possible to demand these requirements." 

" A fundamental and uniform system of training will not 
make a good teacher out of material which has no aptitude 
for it. Such training can only make a fairly-efficient grinding 
machine which in proportion to its success is the more fatal to 
the richer and subtler elements of character and individuality. 
A thorough, yet free and practical, study of mental and moral 
growth of personality in those to be taught is desirable." 

" The present system, like almost all other things past and 
present, .seems to be a mixture fairly satisfactory in some 
respects and more or less unsatisfactory in others." 

"Professional training is very desirable, but it should- be 
based upon, and not substituted for, an adequate general 
education." 

" The danger here seems to lie in the petty little rattletrap 
idea that someone may please to call 'scientific basis.' Life 



Appendix. 123 

and nature, especially human nature, are too large and 
complex to be put into the ' basis ' and when you think you 
have it, off it goes to higher and better things than the 
scientific basis ever figured on." 

"Such training can be made scientific only in so far as 
psychology and ethics can be made scientific." 

"Teaching is an art, as much so as the management of a 
military campaign, and the faculty for doing it — grading down 
from genius to ordinary knack of managing or getting on 
with young people — is of too fundamental a nature to be 
communicated to anyone. What he has can be improved and 
cultivated by proper training, especially by actual practice." 

" The only science, in a reasonably strict sense of the word, 
should be the sciences which bear on pedagogy, physiology, 
psychology, hygiene, etc. These in most cases ought to be 
taught for the good of the teacher who is in the making 
rather than for the theory of the science in question. No 
knowledge of sciences alone can make a teacher, nor, on the 
other hand, any genius so great that training of the right sort 
would not be helpful." 

" Teaching is an art, but every art has a scientific basis and 
it can be in a measure well taught." 

" If ' scientific ' means sound, methodical training which 
shall exalt personality in teacher and student I believe it 
will become increasingly possible, and it is an end worthy 
of great and persistent effort." 

" No art that is so wealthy in its demands and in its 
relations to human needs as the art of teaching is will ever 
be put upon a purely scientific basis. We do not live by 
science alone, but by love, instinct, tact, and personal 
experience. These always transcend our science however the 
latter may grow. A wholesome, progressive training for 
teachers, with a due use of science, but without crystalli- 
zation into a 'system,' will always be in order. The normal 



124 Appendix. 

schools and universities may both take part in this progress. 
They will be useful only in so far as they try not to ' devise ' 
systems but to learn from year to year something new, and to 
apply what they learn to solid work." 

" Some in trying to be scientific bring human beings (the 
pupils) down several stages and assume that their best develop- 
ment can be reached by treating them as if they were simply 
bundles of instincts." 

"There are two factors required in a successful teacher, (1) 
knowledge of his subject, (2) capacity to deal with pupils. 
The teacher to be gets the first in schools and colleges, and 
the second he can acquire only by practice. Any arrangement 
by which would-be teachers can really find out if they have a 
capacity to teach is of service." 

" Of the three elements necessary for a true teacher, viz., 
personality/, material or attainments, and method, the first, 
though of supreme importance in all grades, is increasingly so 
as we go down the grades, and the second, as we go up the 
grades. As to the third — a formal, communicable, scientific 
method — I believe its importance has been greatly exaggerated 
in modern times. A truly scientific method would be a 
rational application of the science of psychology. But this 
science is as yet so imperfect that an attempt to make a 
method formulated wholly on it would do harm rather than 
good. As yet the informal, intuitive methods of mother and 
born teacher, corrected here and there by a knowledge of 
psychology, is all that is left us." 

" The history of education can be taught in as scientific a 
manner as the history of any other function of man's social 
life. Instruction in methods of teaching is to be made 
scientific by being accurate and comprehensive." 

" There can be no doubt that some sort of professional 
training is very desirable for all sorts of teachers of all 
grades of schools." 



Appendix. 125 

" I do not remember ever to have heard that a university 
teacher was benefited by strictly pedagogical training. Some 
of them are pretty bad and certainly could be improved, but 
I hardly think a course in pedagogy would do much for them. 
I do not think it possible to place the training of teachers 
upon a scientific basis at present. The personal element is 
such an important factor that no amount of training can 
overcome certain defects or destroy certain powers." 

" On a basis of assumed and trustworthy knowledge of 
principles, not simply on a scientific basis, it might be 
perfectly possible to work out a system of training for 
teachers in elementary and secondary schools that would 
be really valuable and effective, provided one always insisted, 
first, on having its subjects (the proposed teachers) persons of 
decided natural gifts, and, secondly, persons of native power 
to judge of the great instrumentalities suitable for carrying 
theoretic methods into practice. The teacher, like the poet, 
must be born before he is ' made.' " 

" The training of teachers can be placed on a scientific 
basis in a manner somewhat similar to that of other pro- 
fessions — the practice of medicine, e.g. The difiiculties may 
be somewhat greater on account of the somewhat intangible 
nature of the subject, but the difiiculties can be measurably 
overcome by the vigorous and persistent application of the 
scientific method." 

" Only those teachers who have acquired the power of 
thinking and working independently can be regarded as 
scientifically trained." 

" The elements of discretion, judgment and adaptation of 
principles to particular cases, seem on the whole to be rela- 
tively larger in teaching than in military science, engineering 
or even medicine. Still the scientific element remains and 
is of vital importance." 

"An adequate system of professional training upon a 
scientific basis will eventually be evolved." 



126 Appendix. 

" No person should be admitted as a public-school teacher 
without liaving studied pedagogy, theoretically and practically, 
for at least two or three years in a normal school, and nobody 
should be admitted as teacher under twenty years of age. 
The German normal-school system is good. There pupils 
enter the normal school after leaving the highest grades of 
the public school and receive, in their five or six years' course 
in the normal school, education, and, at the same time, a sound 
theoretical and practical training. A course in the normal 
school should always include at least one foreign language, 
for no one knows his own language unless he has had an 
opportunity of comparing it with another." 

" Education is the development of life. The fault of pro- 
fessional training lies in a narrow conception of scientific law. 
Until we know more we must leave room for the pla}?^ of 
forces which do not enter into our science." 

"All who look forward to teaching as a life work should 
receive a proper training in the science and art of education." 

" If a teacher loves his subject he will soon learn what not 
to do. If he does not love his subject no amount of training 
will make him a good teacher. The best training is to set 
a man in a classroom of boys to teach them and learn by 
doing it." 

" No one should be permitted to deal with the minds and 
bodies of children — especially young children — without as 
thorough an understanding of their structure and action as is 
required for an engineer in regard to his machine. The 
present neglect of thorough instruction in psychology, physi- 
ology and hygiene is a criminal absurdity." 



^ 



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XLbc "QlntvetettB of Cblcago 

FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKRPELLER 



THE POSSIBILITY OF A SCIENCE 
OF EDUCATION 



A DI.SSLK 1 A 1 K )\ 

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTIES OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOLS 
OF ARTS, LITERATURE, AND SCIENCE, IN CANDI- 
DACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR 
OF PHILOSOPHY 

(DEl'ARTMKNT OK PEDAGOGY AND IMillji-i i , 



BY 

SAMUEL BOWER SIiNCLAlK 



CHICAGO 
1903 






P u5 



